


Their Inferno

by samarasharazi



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: /opening markhei, Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Demons, Angst, Anxiety, Character Development, Demon Powers, Developing Relationship, Evil, Hell Trauma, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Murderers, Psychosis, Unhealthy Relationships, donghyuck is a convicted serial killer with under 100 kills, hell is really just the regular mv LOL, mark is my little baby demon, past markhei, past sun&moon, sun&moon is a very important relationship here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-05-18 21:43:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19343236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samarasharazi/pseuds/samarasharazi
Summary: He was a damned soul living the rest of his eternity in Hell and he was the demon trying to escape the reigns of his birth. One was too happy to be exploiting his new freedom in the dark realm and the other was only trying to leave the place he once called home.When you have an eternity to change, the world around you is too easy to break.(au where mark is a demon and hyuck is just a dead soul convicted of over 100 murders)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello my lovely nctzens and other readers who have adventured themselves into reading this fic. i hope you enjoy this story and i'm sorry in advance for my irregular updates, i'm bound to lose motivation for this fic at some point and have it come back later on.
> 
> A FEW IMPORTANT POINTS:
> 
> donghyuck is highkey fucked in fic, his actions i will never condone nor will i ever find myself romanticising crime or murder. he'd killed A LOT of people in this fic so.... poor mark has to fall in love with a dead serial killer, my baby.
> 
> i don't know if this will have a happy ending but i will try very hard for it to have one, somethings just don't turn out to be.
> 
> trigger warnings now will be: reference to suicide and murder, blood and violence, death (obviously), course language
> 
> also this week is inspired by the fic 'hell week' by bluebot and gave me the idea of a fic in hell.

Hell felt _cold._

Not cold as in lacking of emotion and life, but cold as in you have to wear a jumper cold. That kind of cold. The one where you had to bury your face into your fancy little scarf, the designer one you'd bought on the trip back home.

When he first arrived to Hell for the first time, he was surely surprised by the complete opposite description of what it looked like compared to way books always described it to be. This wasn’t an underground, red stone and fire life he was living. It wasn’t hot as the preachers had told them, and the demons running the place weren’t monstrous beings that roamed the place.

Frankly, it was just like a constant dark version of home. Souls still thrived along the busy streets and lights kept shining, neon signs kept blinding. It wasn’t flat either (sorry flat earthers).

The day Donghyuck had died was the day many people had celebrated on Earth. He was sure masses of random people threw parties for his passing and got drunk on the idea that the threat was finally gone. The serial killer was finally dead with the finality of his death penalty.

You read that right, Donghyuck was one of the most notorious serial killers in South Korea, one with a twisted mind and an upturned mouth. He was creepy and very well-known for that fact. _Was._ Now his awful deeds had landed him in a number one spot in Eden, the most populated place in Hell currently. And everyone _loved_ him here.

When you die and come to hell, you experience all of the Seven Deadly Sins. Each one gives you an opinion and option, a way to live the rest of your eternity in indulgence, not like what everyone said what eternal damnation looked like.

Yet everything came with a price. With every Sin, he was given a test or punishment to be then given his reward. When he went through Pride, he was broken on the wheel and only the volume of his screams allowed him to move on. There, he was given eternal greatness that he would carry on in the dark realm.

With Envy, Donghyuck was given was the option to regress his body in age to become more youthful and beautiful. That way, there was no chance of carrying envy even in Hell. He was very satisfied with the result, having gone back into his early twenties where he was only coming out of teenage hood. When he was still innocent. A poppy in No Man’s Land.

Next came Lust. Donghyuck almost dreaded this circle of Limbo, he knew it was going to be bad. In his young life on Earth, he had _many_ indulgences of the body. One would say it was twisted, unorthodox, disgusting, yet all Donghyuck could think about was getting what _he_ wanted no matter the price.

Maybe that’s why he became a murderer, a savage in a world of innocents. But no one was really innocent, were they? And that’s what always fuelled Donghyuck’s mind whenever he went in for the next kill, the constant desire to rid the world of people like that. But no, he wasn’t evil, he was a saint amongst sinners.

When the court had deemed him sane, the death penalty had immediately been set upon his head, only three months from the sitting in court. People cried in that small and claustrophobic court room, the dark and glazed wood encasing him with a bunch of fakes, people who didn’t two shits about the world they world they were living in. They all liked to act, that’s what it was.

At one point of his murderous adventures, Donghyuck had started targeting women and men who had denied him their bodies and murdered them in the most torturous way possible. Just like what Lust did to him, he kidnapped them in their sleep and tied them to a chair and waited for them to slowly start to gain consciousness. When they did, he would start to reveal his identity as the Sunshine Killer and laugh manically as he watched their faces drop of all colour. He was crazy. When he was satisfied with the amount of screaming they were able to let out, he would disappear for a moment and give them a glimmer of hope before coming back with his own personalised bottle of lighter fluid. Then he would douse their whole bodies except their faces, enjoying his time when all he could hear were their straining screams for someone to come help them, to save them.

But no one would come, because no one was around them. They were all dead. Donghyuck had killed them all.

So when he came to the trial of Lust, the flames that engulfed him turned blue with the intensity of the heat. His screams didn’t go unheard, quickly becoming music for the demons surrounding him, weighing his morality and accusations. Donghyuck didn’t know how time worked in Hell, but the flames licked up his skin for what felt like was hours, days. The vanity given to him in the previous trial was melting off like hard wax, bubbling and burning. The smell went rancid in his own nostrils, but even his sense of smell quickly went away as the flames obscured his view of everything around him. The smell of sulphur went undetectable within the smell of burning flesh. Fire and Brimstone.

When they released him however, his body was back to his early adulthood, perfectly unblemished. There were no sores or black and charred marks anywhere along his skin. He was perfect again. And what they gave him was forever satisfaction and pleasure at his fingertips, whenever he wanted it.

Donghyuck was a very angry person. Hence, why when he went through his trial for Wrath, with the immediate snap of the Sin’s fingers, he was pushed to the further fire licking wall and could feel his whole oesophagus be pulled out from inside his body. He couldn’t let out any of the pain, the blood filling his throat into his mouth was suffocating his voice. The pain was too much, the worst sort of torture. When He then decided to snap His fingers again, the bones attaching his limbs snapped and dislocated from his body. He could hardly feel the rip of his flesh with all the pain he was feeling. The only reason he’d been conscious for the whole of it was because this was Hell, there was no escape for any of your punishments.

The affect was immediate, once his limbs had been fully dismembered from his body and his throat was filled to the brim with blood, within a blink of the eyes it all went back to normal and only the ghost of the pain experienced remained. It was still able to mentally scar Donghyuck, blinding his mind. They had given him eternal happiness and full guarantee that nothing in Hell could ever anger him. He was almost upset with that.

He lived off the rage.

In his human life, Donghyuck was seen to be more of a giving person rather than a greedy one. His whole purpose was to rid the world of the bad people, he didn’t want to take anything in return. Every Christmas, his mother had convinced him to donate a hundred thousand dollars to the local cancer foundation. Even while his identity was still a mystery, he would go to the nearest shelter and help spoon out the food to the homeless because that was what made him _happy._ The money he received was only from the inheritance he’d been given from his highly thriving family business. Donghyuck wasn’t lazy as they thought him to be, the idea itself made him want to vomit.

When they’d granted him permission to enter into the inner walls of Hell, giving him a position in Eden, Donghyuck hadn’t known what to do with himself. He had so much at his fingertips, a granted home and a mirroring career to what he had when he was alive. He was given any source of pleasure he wanted and he was youthful again.

It was everything.

That’s why he figured fire was his favourite part of Hell, why the reflection of the red and purple blazes became almost glassy in the night sky. It reminded him of all the pain and suffering he had to initially go through to end up in the position he was in right now. It also reminded him of his better ways of torture.

Donghyuck lived in what other people would call a warehouse, somewhat away from the main city and further around the skyscrapers that surrounded Eden like a flock of ravens. It was a modern block in the inside but it was elegant, decorated to warm the little pieces of the soul he had left. It was all black paint and old chandeliers, panelled walls and luxurious velvet sofas. The combination of silk and velvet is really what set Donghyuck off.

They had told him the only law to adhere by in Hell was to never kill or harm another damned soul. If he did, he would spend the rest of his eternity in Limbo and experience the worst pain, both mentally and painfully.

There was a clock in the house, there was. It was set to the universal time that apparently Hell had to track the rotational shifts of the demons and trials held with new and incoming sinners. The patrolling demon had given it to him when they’d somehow found their way naked into the demon’s bedroom. They managed to keep contact after that, even it was friendly banter rather than anything sexual after.

Now, Donghyuck was sitting a bar scanning the stools and the crowds that come in with their own groups. There was no one that spiked Donghyuck’s interest and he usually didn’t like calling for a random liked the Sin’s had promised him to be available. He got the impression these souls had sold themselves off instead falling into Limbo and he really wasn’t a fan of doing anything like that with someone if it wasn’t a hundred percent consensual (ironic I know).

“Another round?” the plain soul behind the bar asked him, rounding in to serve the next customer.

Donghyuck looked down to his almost empty glass that had been filled with the most disgusting liquor but couldn’t stop himself from nodding his head and allowing the bartender to slide over another round over to his spindling fingertips. He didn’t bother giving a ‘thanks’ and bowed his head down instead, blocking his view from anyone else present.

See, Donghyuck didn’t exactly know how he’d been here for even with his precious clock. He remembered dying in 2000 and that was it. He’d only been 32 at the time. He supposed he’d been in Hell for too many years already based on the memory he holds of everything around him and the experiences he had.

Eden wasn’t an isolated city with nothing past it. Just like a normal city, it had suburbs following along and then the ‘countryside’. Hundreds of miles past here were other populated cities and central points for business and pleasure.

Pleasure was something Donghyuck’s mind happened to rotate around now that he was dead and away from all the pressures of ‘saving the world of damnation’. He guessed he had perfect description of what that looked like now.

Even in Hell, Donghyuck still somehow found a way to feel the overly active sense of loneliness hollow him through. He could hear other souls laughing at something their friends had said, loud conversations with flirting entwined through like grapevines. He had none of that, only luck for a night if he found someone to occupy his mind for an hour or two.

Within minutes, Donghyuck had managed to finish his drink and thanked the bartender, intending to stand up and leave. The haze within his mind started to cloud his judgement more and softened his perception. With all that, he was still able to make a sound decision and walked straight with the intention of getting to the door to go home. But something stopped him in path.

A commotion by the heavy iron doors had piqued Donghyuck’s interest and blocked his pathway, so he walked over and watched it all unravel. It was as if something fire-like was igniting in his eyes.

There were two demons standing there, arguing about something Donghyuck couldn’t identify through their conversation. Green and red fire was dancing around them, ones that they’d presumably accidently started in their defence. They looked to be around the same age as Donghyuck and only wore black save for the sparkling red chokers enclosing their necks in almost what he thought to be a mark of ownership or obedience.

Donghyuck once read a story about the red velvet ribbon chokers that prostitutes wore to alert people to come to them in bars. Apparently all prostitutes went to Hell.

Slowly, the rest of the bar became aware of their presence and quickly quietened down to hear better what the two young demons were quarrelling about. Curiosity was always the biggest weakness with the souls of the damned.

Donghyuck watched as these two demons let the fire reach between them and reach their hands, igniting their eyes with hellfire. The shorter of the two was bearing his fangs to the other, sharp and needle-like incisors that shone in the dim overhead lights making them sparkle like forbidden jewels in a cave full of temptation.

“Lucas, you’re a fucking idiot! Why would you do this to me? It was supposed to be forever! You fucked it all up!” the smaller boy screamed, hatred corrupting his otherwise steady voice.

The boy didn’t have that much of a disadvantage with his height, Donghyuck realised, he was the same height as him. The boy was exceptionally beautiful, black hair swept back to show his forehead and the jewels adorned on his finger glittered and made him seem hundred times more ethereal than he probably was. He had kohl eyeliner carefully run along his eyes and it made them too angry for anyone to look at. He was like a statue made to admire.

The other boy, Donghyuck presumed he was Lucas, looked just as irritated if only a little guilty. From the position Donghyuck was standing in, he stood closest to their fight and could see the cracks of uncertainty start fill his face, lips twitching as he listened to the handsome boy. He wouldn’t speak.

“What is your problem, huh? I gave you _everything_ and for what, so you could throw it all away when you went and found a prettier and wealthier play toy? I’m not a fucking _doll_ Lucas, I have feelings too and you had to go fucking cheat on me! You’re a filthy bastard,” the boy finished, his hands fisting to his sides so hard that Donghyuck worried that the skin would break and the boy would start bleeding.

Demons lived off pain and blood.

Lucas finally decided to wake out of his reverie and step forward, bringing the almost dissipating green flames with him.

“Mark, you don’t know anything, you’re just a young and naïve demon who pretends to be able to handle the whole world on his shoulders. Yeah, I bloody cheated on you and you know what? I enjoyed it, she was much better than you,” Lucas snipped, and snickered when he saw the boy pale in colour with the last hits at him.

By now, the whole bar was quiet except the two demon boys and every soul in the room had their mouths dropped open. This was too scandalous, even for Donghyuck, and he was someone who would’ve lived for them.

But this boy, Mark, didn’t die down. He stood straighter and let his fire turn into shadows, growing in size up until it almost reached Donghyuck. Under all the darkness, he could see through it and make out the new red eyes reflecting through the shadows, staring straight at Lucas.

“You know what, Lucas? I think you seem to forget you position in court sometimes,” the boy muttered, almost whispering. This obviously supposed something said only to Lucas, the boy who now stood there with an ashen face and worrying lip. “But that’s fine, do you know why Lucas? Because your little girlie is a little plain grey soul, and you see, my position on Hell allows me to make both hers and yours a life of eternal pain. Or better yet, I can just evaporate her soul and wipe her out of the entirety of existence. How does that sound?” he asked. The eyes grew brighter and more blood red, swirling underneath the weight of the shadows surrounding him. He even had Lucas bound in his circle of shadows, trapping him.

The taller boy looked frightened then, maybe because he knew the power this demon had, the influence he could use against him. These two demons were a mystery to Donghyuck, but he couldn’t help but be interested in the backstory that was slowly starting to be unravelled and showcased for souls like Donghyuck to see. He also _hated_ cheaters.

“N-No, Mark you wouldn’t do that. Even if you hate me right now, I’ve known you for too long. W-We’ve been best friends for such a long time before this, right? I know you won’t do that to us.”

Mark scoffed and rolled his eyes, eyes flashing. “Yeah, you fucked that up too. I hope you’re happy with your little slut. Bye,” he farewelled and gathered all his shadows to encase him like a wrap, clearing the view for Donghyuck.

Before Mark left however, Donghyuck swore the tinging red eyes travelled to his figure, assessing him as if to realise where he finally was and how close this particular soul was. Within the flash of a second, the demon dissipated into only a shadow himself and then he was gone. The dead soul hadn’t realised he was holding his breath, letting it out with a mild urgency when his face started feeling colder than usual.

And then everything back to normal. All the other souls went back to their own business and the fire and darkness that had occupied the bar during the confrontation was gone. Lucas still stood there, breathing heavily with his fangs hanging over his lips. Sweat was covering his neck and forehead and scorch marks lined themselves around the young demon’s wrists and fingers. They looked almost painful, a little memory that would heal.

“Be careful next time, there are some people _here_ that don’t like cheaters,” Donghyuck murmured, catching the attention of the demon.

The transition was instant, the angry façade sliding back on again to face this seemingly lost soul who had the nerve to talk to a demon disrespectfully.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lucas growled, showing off his fanged teeth to scare off Donghyuck.

But nothing scared him anymore, not even evil.

“Well Lucas, my name is Donghyuck. You’ll surely hurry and remember that name because I’m hoping it’s going to mean a lot to you in the future,” Donghyuck said, walking forward until he was in front of him. He dared challenge the demon right in front of him. “I can cause you a lot of trouble demon, I hope you know that. You broke that poor boy’s heart and unfortunately for you, I _hate_ cheaters.”

Lucas’ mouth was wide open, questioning the words that were coming out of the boy’s mouth. There was an unpleasant taste in the air shared between the two, one that reminded them of the events previously occurred right before.

What was one worthless soul doing threatening a powerful demon? “What?”

Donghyuck laughed manically and stepped past the frozen boy, looking at him once more.

“I suppose I should tell you what I did to them, right? See I thought it was genius, I used to capture them when they were most vulnerable and tie them to a plank board. You should’ve heard their screams Lucas, it was like music, they were so beautiful. They all screamed until their throats closed over from the pain and then I would start my torture,” Donghyuck sighed and leaned against the wall, thinking fondly of all those memories, the ones that filled him whole. Lucas looked disgusted to even be standing there. “I would cut tiny holes into them and fill them with honey and milk then I would let the rats and ants eat them alive. Best part, I would have both their partners watch them die of agony before I went on to kill them too.”

“That’s disgusting, no wonder you’re in Hell,” Lucas snapped, tensing under the weight of Donghyuck’s words. The two of them may not know each other at all but they were both able to recognise the threat that stood in front of them.

Donghyuck hummed and flicked the strands of hair that had obscured his view. “They told me my only rule was not to harm anyone else here, but you know what I thought? I always believed you couldn’t even lay harm on another soul here but apparently I was wrong,” he shrugged and opened the door.

With a click of Lucas’ fingers, a strong gust of wind pulled Donghyuck out of the bar and further away from him. The soul laughed softly and tilted his head in the dark alleyway.

“Lucas you better watch out because I have no sudden interest in staying here for long and you just might be my ticket out,” and with that he turned away and let the heavy door slam closed, cutting the connection between the two. A large orange neon sign of a tiger’s face flashed overhead and he smiled, thinking how beautiful this place could really be.

God, he loved Hell.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slight warning with mention of domestic abuse, please be warned.

 

There were many moments in Donghyuck’s entire life where he thought _that_ was the moment he was going to fall, the moment where he would watch his entire empire crumble down into dust. In all those moments, he watched and held his breath, praying that he could survive another day. No one wants to watch their passion fall apart, to be taken away from the thing that made them who they _were._

Murder wasn’t always that thing for Donghyuck. He used to be the clown of the class, smiling at every person that passed by and he tried his best to make everyone’s day a little better. Everyone loved him, girls and boys alike wanted to be his friend, even teachers would come up to him and explain his outstanding performance in school. He had it all. What he didn’t have however, was a good sense of commitment.

Whether he’d grown up with it, or picked it up in the last coming years, Donghyuck was always the one to break away first. In friendships, family, romantic relationships, it was all the same boring and meaningless routine to him. No one was every exciting enough to sedate his thirst for _more_. Even at one point when his mother had taken him to the school councillor to have someone talk to him, he hadn’t uttered a single word throughout the session. That night he came home to a red-faced father and open lashes all across his thighs and calves. His mother never tried to get him to open up every again.

Donghyuck didn’t necessarily like being known as the Sunshine Killer even in death, he thought it was a bit dragging that he couldn’t escape from an alter ego he’d created to make himself feel better. In prison, they had given him plenty of time to revalue his life and morals and made him slowly realise the wrongs of the network he’d created with such intricacy.

Sometimes he fell back into his old habits and found himself targeting unsuspecting souls, planning a whole scene right in front of his eyes without even realising. They all deserved it after all, they were in hell for a reason. The only thing that stopped him most of the time was the warning they had given to him the moment he stepped into Hell.

If there was one interesting thing Donghyuck had learned in his time on Hell, it was the fact that souls and demons alike could fall in love and were capable of such strong emotions. Someone had once explained to him how and why, how people were such beings that love was almost like a curse in Hell, such a selfish and ghastly act that Satan himself had allowed it. Some others say that He himself was desperate for love and with the impending eternity ahead of Him, had flourished love upon the whole land for his own selfish gain.

Donghyuck didn’t know if anyone would ever love him again, not like that at least. Maybe he was too perverse and disgusting for that, his acts too much even for the residents of Hell. Lucas had made that perfectly clear the one time they’d stumbled upon each other, how a demon could even find him repulsive. Regret was never a solvent to get rid of memories and actions made.

There were a few souls in Hell that tolerated him enough to spend time with him, young and too adventurous for someone like him. Yet in his loneliness, he went along with them to places like the underground clubs and the bars that were way too overcrowded for his liking. Somehow however, with all the time he’s spent in Hell convincing himself he was a good person, those very places had attracted him even without the assistance of his ‘friends’. They made him feel less alone, almost turned into a memory of what bodies against him used to feel like, what friends used to feel like.

Years into the future when the children he could’ve had have passed and the third generation were growing, Donghyuck hoped then maybe he’d have someone to rely on. Even the worst murderer needed compassion and love. Someone would look at him with stars in their eyes and the smile at him like he was liquid gold sitting in front of them.

“Do you wanna watch some of the new movies that just came in?” Jaemin asked from beside him, controller in one hand and popcorn in the other. Donghyuck just blew at his hair and nodded, falling into his seat on the mattress.

The three of them, alongside Renjun, had settled for a night inside Donghyuck’s home after Renjun had suggested they stay in for the night. In no time, the three of them had set up a pillow forte in the living room and loaded it with the fluffiest blankets Donghyuck owned. He owned a lot.

“Can we watch The Grinch? They killed me before it came out and I had really wanted to watch it,” Donghyuck asked excitedly, pulling the comforter over his chest when the other had everything ready with the snacks and the pillows. Renjun shrugged and sidled up next to him, wrapping his own blanket around him before snuggling into Donghyuck’s side, completely unbothered by who the murderer was.

Renjun had always been the more relaxed of the two when it came to Donghyuck’s past life. The first time the three of them had met, Jaemin had run away from him as soon as he found the similarity between the real life Sunshine Killer and the all the photos that had been displayed on the TV’s and news centres. Renjun had looked only mildly afraid but otherwise indifferent when he admitted that he had killed five people in a fit of rage while he was camping out with his friends in his last year of high school. The boy had spent three years in jail before succumbing to death when he was found stone cold on his cell floor.

The three of them had died all in the same year, Renjun first then Donghyuck with Jaemin coming last. No one knew how the latter had come down to Hell, or even how he’d died in the first place. Renjun told him once that the boy would tell them later when he thought the time was right. They a whole eternity ahead of them anyways.

“Renjun did you buy that chocolate ice cream that I asked you to? The expensive one,” Jaemin muttered from Donghyuck’s other side having been squished in the middle with the laptop on his stomach. The Chinese soul groaned in agreement and lazily pointed to the kitchen counter where the groceries of the place were.

They started the movie once Jaemin came back with his pint of ice cream and three spoons, unceremoniously dropping it on Donghyuck’s lap with an ‘oomph’ without even sparing a glance at the other boy. The murderer just grumbled something silly under his breath and started the film, basking in the starting credits and scene. How different the colours were to the ones in Eden, the red and the green.

The three of them spent the night bickering and laughing at Renjun when a particular scene came on of the Grinch that frightened the male enough to let out a loud scream. Jaemin complained that he missed Christmas dinners and then Donghyuck went to talk about how he didn’t have any of them growing up with his family.

“Is that why you became a killer, because of your family?” Jaemin asked suddenly once the film was finished and they were all settled for sleep on the living room floor. By the large intake of breath from Renjun, this wasn’t a question the two boys usually asked Donghyuck.

He sighed and turned to face the ceiling, little swirls of red light coming from outside the windows decorating the dark room. He was used to Jaemin’s curiosity in many things, but his past life had never been a topic of discussion when it came to the younger male. He was usually too scared to found out or even ask.

“My relationship with my family was always rocky in the start anyways. My dad was an abusive bigot who liked to prove his dominance over my mother and I and then show it off to his friends. Mum never complained and just tried to keep me as happy as possible even when she had bruises all over her face. Dad never let her wear makeup to cover the discolouring or scars, it would only make it worse if he found out what she was doing. He made her wear it all like a trophy, even to all her friends and co-workers,” Donghyuck breathed, looking down at his hands with a slight detachment. Renjun was rubbing circles into his shoulders, comforting him. “He never put any visible marks on my body so that my teachers or other students could see, he didn’t want any questions on my side. He used to whip and cut me along my thighs and back, sometimes I was so sore I couldn’t even move and take days off. It made me lose trust in my relationships with people.”

There was a pause of silence, Jaemin’s breath catching a few moments before going back to normal. It was a lot of information that explained more than it should have, and now the boys who wanted to know it all suddenly wished their mouths had been kept shut. Donghyuck sincerely hoped they wouldn’t sympathise with him and apologise, he’d gotten it enough time in his blood life to hear it anymore.

A moment of silence longer before Renjun decided to break it. “I was feeling some pizza and another movie, how does that sound to the two of you?” he proposed, sitting up beside Donghyuck.

Jaemin nodded, going along with the idea. “Sounds good, I’m starving and that ice cream did jack shit for me,” he said. They both looked to Donghyuck and tilted their heads, waiting for his answer.

Donghyuck may say he was lonely in this eternal world of cold and fire, but the truth was that no matter how much he tried to push himself away from every person that cared about him, there was always a spot for the murderer in the arms of Renjun and Jaemin. Without even realising, years had passed without incident and the days became indistinguishable under the constant possibility of something new. He drew himself away from his friends because he himself had set that mentality that he was unwanted and broken, ugly and disfigured.

In reality, it was Jaemin who had come back to Donghyuck to apologise for his previous actions and they’d immediately clicked when they’d promised each other to start anew with no mentions of their past life. It was a decision that was most comfortable with the youngest, giving him a sense of relief when they mentioned the start of a new life together.

“You know that small demon you were telling us about? The one with Lucas?” Jaemin asked. Donghyuck nodded hesitantly, sitting up beside Renjun and crossing his legs. “I’ve seen Lucas before. He patrols the other side of the city, he’s friend with that hot demon I always keep on telling you about, that Jaehyun hellboy.”

Renjun quizzed an eyebrow, looking sceptically at his best friend. “The one you say has super long fangs? That stupid one?”

Jaemin rolled his eyes and threw a handful of lollies at Renjun, ignoring the stares that he was getting from his friends. It was a known fact that Jaemin liked to travel a short while to witness the shortcomings of the demons that lived there. South of Eden was known to be the hub for demon activity and residence, close knit from centuries of living and experience.

Demons never aged, like souls, they were immortal and ever-burning in the fire of Hell. Souls liked to call it hellfire. It was their blood and energy source, always craving it like sex and always in need of it like water. Blood and pain from the mortal world was converted into that fire for them, the ever suffering of death to keep them impelling.

In all his time there, Donghyuck had only experienced the damnation of one demon to Limbo. It was meant to be the most excruciating pain of all, one unmatched to any physical pain someone could experience. It was the pain of the mind, sent into a world forever of mystery and madness, inescapable and bound like a sealed box. It was dark and light at the same time, cold and warm on the fiery skin. It was a design made to make even the sanest species lose their mind.

Jaehyun and his gang were a load of demons who lived in the South and who took patrol there as well. They were notorious for being the cruellest to the souls passing or living there, as if they weren’t welcome in a place _literally_ built for them. They ranged with age of immortality yet all looked no older than a day over twenty, devastatingly beautiful in the way one could only lust over their existence and watch from afar.

“Lucas is so hot, Hyuck! Why didn’t you mention it before you made us all hate him?” Jaemin pouted. Donghyuck snorted and snatched the ice cream from his embrace.

“He’s a motherfucking bitch is what he is, looking all smug in that black leather ghetto. Honestly that smaller demon had better style than him and that’s saying something,” he scowled, his memories tunnelling back to the moment in the bar where the two demons were arguing, one towering over the other with hellfire surrounding them like a blanket. Mark looked better than he would ever admit, his name burned like a tattoo behind his eyelids.

“Still don’t get why you’re so fired up about the demon, it’s not like it’s any of your concern what they do.”

“I know, I just got angry in the moment. I’m still trying to be better.”

The faint sound of vehicles and laughter filled in the gaps of silence between the three friends, a moment of contemplation on all parts as they thought about the threatening and imposing matter of Donghyuck’s mental strength. With the conclusion of their past lives, the matter of his stability was another topic that was never brought up. The male was working on his own to turn himself around; he never thought the discussion with another soul was necessary to get him to that position.

Glass broke outside the house, young children who had been sent to Hell too early playing games along the stone footpaths, shattering as many glass objects they could for some entertainment. The windows were open and allowed the noise to settle inside the home, distracting the souls sitting inside. It had become a constant occurrence, the children too stubborn to move away from their elders even when told off. It was their version of ‘fun’.

“Those kids are playing again and I swear I’m not going to pick up after them later, they make such a fucking mess,” Donghyuck muttered, Renjun agreeing with immediately. He even stood up and closed the window and shut away the sound.

Jaemin looked hesitant yet brimming with a new sense of excitement. He scrambled out of their little fort and disappeared from sight when the blankets obscured their view. It wasn’t long before he lifted the blanket again and crouched down away from the opening with a smile.

“Why don’t we go and play with them for once? Remember that one time we played on our own? It was so much fun!” he proposed and held out his hand. He wanted them to take it. “We can get that pizza and movie afterwards.”

Renjun looked to Donghyuck and shrugged, always indifferent. The murderer considered it and figured they didn’t have much else to do, annoying a bunch of adolescent souls who may happen to be older than him sounded like an interesting idea.

“You know what? Let’s do it,” he said, taking Jaemin’s hand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was shorter but it was more just character introduction and development along with world development also. we'll see more of mark in the next few chapters and maybe some other demons as well ;) 
> 
> don't forget to leave a comment of how you about the fic so far and even maybe a kudos. i should really be doing my hw right now.
> 
> thank you xxxxxxxxx
> 
> agas-safa


	3. Chapter 3

 

Donghyuck met Mark for the second time in a club located in the south of Eden, the swarm of demon activity. He shouldn’t be surprised really by the fact of his presence in the corner of the crowded nightclub, the music pounding on every surface and back. It was almost like he was expecting it, waiting for the demon to pounce at any opportunity given to him.

It was only a matter of time before the two were drawn to each other in some way or the other.

Jaemin had pulled him to the dance floor the moment they’d stepped into the vast space, where there were crystals sparkling from the ceiling and shining down on the adventuring souls and demons, packed all into the same space to enjoy a moment together before a new one begun. That’s the way it was in Hell, a constant rotation with no moments breath. Renjun had laughed at the two and signalled he was going to get a drink, gliding away from the mass and toward the less busy bar that had elegant forgoers sitting by it.

Too many songs passed as the two danced, completely unaware of the demon boy that had been occupying Donghyuck’s mind for so much time sitting at an unoccupied table wearing a black dress shirt too silky that it slipped easier than butter. The two souls were out of breath yet they didn’t care, all they could think about was how many more songs their legs would last before they too collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Renjun sat with his legs over the other, watching the two with a peaceful expression on his face, smiling when Donghyuck almost fell against another soul. It wasn’t long before the drink that he had ordered was served to him, a martini glass slid in front of his jewelled hands. He quickly thanked the bored soul waiting him and went to turn back to watch his friends dancing.

It was just between a split second and the shut if his eyes when it happened, a bump to the shoulder that almost sent Renjun sprawling.

“Oh, I’m so sorry-” Renjun apologised, turning around to hold onto the offending figure that had caused the collision. He stopped when he recognised the demon however, the frown on his face deepening when the other only looked at him with a smirk on his face.

“Renjun, babe. What are you doing here so far away from home?” Lucas asked, quirking an eyebrow up with mock curiosity. It felt like a lesion on the side of his body, hard and fast yet no less painful.

It was a mistake that Renjun had made on his part, going delirious with the want and desire his body had given him upon the proximity of the demon in front of him. A small duration of time that took up too much space in Renjun’s mind, the constant and swirling guilt always rotating like a spit over fire.

He knew he shouldn’t have done it, having known the hellboy was dating another their whole affair. Yet he couldn’t help it, couldn’t help the pure want that outweighed anything and everything else. His body betrayed him and Renjun loathed himself for it. And when Donghyuck told him about the other boy, about the incident, he’d felt so incredibly guilty he was half surprised that he was able to feel such strong emotion even in death.

But what was worst of all was the feeling of betrayal when he realised he was only one of a few, not even the only other one, but a disposable body that was nothing unless it was under a warm body, broken and without breath. It made him feel dirty, beautifully used and uncommonly played like an old vinyl that was cherished once for its antiquity until something better came along and then suddenly beauty wasn’t enough.

The demon in question stood in front of him now, arms crossed and smiling like he’d finally won the most important thing in his life. Renjun refused to believe that it was him. There was nothing malicious about his composure or the beaming stretch upon his lips, only and inviting. It was one of the many things that had attracted Renjun in his weaker moments, when he had let his temptations poison the sanity people praised him for.

It’s quite fitting that the boy who went to Hell for losing control lost it again.

“Why did you come here to me?” Renjun questioned, suddenly anxious. He was playing with the straw in his drink, twirling it around with his tongue. The tangy and slightly burning taste of the alcohol was refreshing in a situation like this, anchoring him to the foundations of Hell.

Lucas laughed then, changing his position to stand straighter, looking back over his shoulder to look at something before paying his attention back to the small male in front of him.

“My friends dragged me out here to let off some steam. They also forgot to mention my ex would be here too. I just decided to come here to you instead,” he said all while shrugging, walking over to the empty seat beside him. Here, Renjun could see the shine of his fangs under the million fancy dim lights that decorated the bar, the crystals hanging off the ceiling of the club. The way the tight shirt stretched over his arm muscles, his biceps shown off even under the red fabric.

But Renjun frowned and looked around, trying to find the group that Lucas had showed up with, looking past his friends still on the dance floor and to the ends of the club. There were too many people here, crowded and overexcited; it was a little nauseating to him as his eyes wandered.

Finally, after moments of searching, he found them, all close to the stage where the DJ was set up. It wasn’t a big group, only a couple of demons who in a sea of lost souls were silenced and outweighed.

They weren’t far away from Donghyuck and Jaemin, only a few metres apart and songs away. Renjun wasn’t concerned about the demons meeting his friends, if only it was Donghyuck finally meeting the demon boy he was constantly talking about.

It was like a puppy-love crush, a constant flow of conversation about the boy with no name and every second spent in the boys gaze dissected and relived until there was no more, just a shell of whatever was present in the first place. With no proper sense of time in Hell, Renjun didn’t know how much time had passed since the murderer had come to them with a name at the tip of his lips that was all but supressed when the other two asked for it.

Lucas’ ex was here, and Donghyuck was here. Renjun didn’t know what the boy looked like in a dance of darkness and he wouldn’t ask now, but Donghyuck knew what he looked like. So many moments and now the boy was here.

And Lucas was right by his side.

“What are your friends doing?” Renjun pointed to them, nodding his head quizzically in the same direction. Lucas followed his direction and watched as Jaehyun grabbed Doyoung by shoulders and pushed him on top of Taeil, his writhing laughs going unheard to their ears. He breathed in deeply and looked down, something unrecognisable and small passing through his face.

“Mark felt really low so they brought him here. I felt super guilty so Jae brought me here without realising the other plans going on. Since I was the one who fucked up everything, they decided to ditch me and went to spend the rest of the time together.”

Renjun was confused because while the situation might be familiar to Lucas, the soul didn’t understand anything. He couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad for Lucas, it wasn’t something he wanted to step into every again now that he knew better.

“Who’s Mark?” he asked because he didn’t know, it was just a name thrown at him as if he was expected to know it was. Lucas looked at him dubiously and had the nerve to look ashamed.

“Mark, he’s my ex,” he simply said, brushing it off quickly as if it was nothing. But now it was one more piece of information Renjun had against the boy.

Mark, the demon boy who had broken apart in front of a bar filled with drunk souls, showcased his hellfire for Donghyuck to see and refracted the very shadow within him. Mark, the hellboy Donghyuck couldn’t stop talking about, his feign obsession taking a slightly unhealthy turn had it been up in the mortal world.

Yet this wasn’t the mortal world, Renjun wasn’t alive and Mark wasn’t a dead soul. For all the kind soul knew, the demon could be a very important figure in Eden. There was no light in Hell, no daytime, no sunlight on one’s fair skin.

Renjun suddenly looked back to the dance floor, eyes tuned to see his friends dancing. There was no point in trying to find Mark; he didn’t know what the boy looked like for him to notice any further. From far it was hard to see the smile that was plastered to Jaemin’s face or the light that reflected in Donghyuck’s eyes, the pure joy each soul elated with all the sweat and stickiness spent against them.

Watching for afar, it wouldn’t be long before Donghyuck sees the boy, stopping his movements with Jaemin to stare in his direction. He would let his eyes glaze over for a moment and then walk over, careful not to warn anyone else of his presence. The other demons wouldn’t be aware of his company, quietly letting the murderer walk over to the subject of his mind until his was centimetres away just watching. He would admire the smooth and tanned curve of the demons neck that dipped into that very tantalising black silk, over and under the pretty silver necklace that was hung so delicately around him like a noose. The fangs that were drawn inside his mouth would attract Donghyuck’s attention, allowing him to finally move into the eyesight of the demon boy where he was sitting and would look at him with wide eyes, letting himself just stare.

“Who are you?” Mark would say weakly, not taking his eyes off the pretty soul who had too much highlight on his cheeks that somehow still managed to make him look like a gem in a pit of coal.

Donghyuck would smile and move back the chair beside the hellboy and sit down, leaning his tanned and exposed body towards him. Then he would smile with all his dazzling white teeth and let his eyes shine, enrapturing the demon into a hypnotic hold.

“My name is Donghyuck and yours is Mark, I assume?” he would ask. Mark would be dumbfounded but nod nevertheless, subconsciously being drawn to the figure opposite him like a magnetic pull. Then a random body would pass them, laughing and drawing their attention away for a brief second before coming back again, eyes more inspecting.

Mark would tilt his head, a questioning haze in his eyes and let it slowly click. His arm would retract from where it was casually thrown on the table before, now slightly ignited with hellfire like an automatic defence mechanism. The smile on Donghyuck’s face however won’t fall even as he tries his hardest to keep it on, to look impassive. The fear would be an obvious air that clung to their nearness, a defence for Mark yet a reminder for Donghyuck.

And then Mark would speak.

“I know you, you’re that murderer everyone threw a party for here in Hell.”

There would be a pause where Donghyuck’s brain would try and process all that was said. Mark knew him, and now he knew Mark. The knowledge of Donghyuck’s name would send him over the edge and into a pool of honey, glistening in the non-existent sun and drowning every cry one would ever make to get out.

“And you’re the demon that got dumped at that stingy bar. I saw it all by the way, quite upsetting,” he’ll say because he wasn’t good at this stuff, he didn’t know how to get what he wanted without physically forcing it through. Frankly, he didn’t even _know_ what he wanted. He just knew that he wanted Mark apart of the equation.

However, what he would say would then offend Mark and have the boy turning his face back to the crowd, almost acting as a small barrier between the two because there was nothing else except the warm and musty air between them.

It would take a moment to bring in a new thought to the front of his brain, letting insults hide behind the tip of his tongue without having to look at the shining soul. Souls weren’t supposed to burn so brightly like that, they were meant to be dull in comparison to the true reigns of Hell, insignificant and blemished. Demons were meant to be the true masters of this world.

But when Donghyuck would sit down in front of him with a single emerald hanging off his coloured collarbones from a golden chain and a silk top that gave him a wide and shallow V-line that showed off the whole of his collarbones, the whole would dim down and only put a spotlight on that very pretty soul. Every head would turn, demons and souls alike, to stop and just stare but not touch. They weren’t allowed to touch.

So Mark would look down at his sweating hand and close his eyes, blocking every noise and sight and just focus on calming himself. The hellfire would slowly disappear and he would open his eyes again before turning back to the soul who shone like the sun and smile, extending out his hand for the soul to shake.

“It’s not a sight I’m sure that would’ve been quite appealing,” he’ll say after a moments of just staring at Donghyuck’s face, too awfully mesmerised and confused to form a proper train of thought. The underlying layer of fear would still be there however. “It was one of my worse moments.”

The laugh the murderer would give would light the whole room even if Mark would be the only one hearing it. It would expose his jugular and reveal the most vulnerable parts of the body where his fangs would fit perfectly, paint the smooth canvas a vibrant red.

The light strands of Donghyuck’s dark and soft hair would fall into his face as he drew back forward, leaving a small smile on his face as he examined Mark’s features, searching for any fail of engagement. The song would change and Mark’s head would rise up, the slight redness in his cheeks washed away in the glittering light spots. The mood would change and Donghyuck would feel his breath catch as demon would look at him one last time before disappearing away, leaving the lonely soul all alone.

A candle would shine in the middle of the table, stable and strong in its flame and mock Donghyuck when he would look at it. The feeling of defeat and utter hopelessness would crush every hope he had that he was better and beyond what other’s saw him to be. Everyone only will see him as dangerous and a sceptical sight to look at, never to approach.

The room around him will continue to go around with no concern about the murderous boy who will have his head in his arms on the table, shoulders shaking. He’ll be left alone and out of sight from his friends, no one to come to his rescue.

Only when the hours washed away, will souls and demons alike tend home for the rest of the evening, alerting the worn out soul to leave. He’ll stand up without adjusting the clothing that would be obscured and show off his now red shoulder, almost showing off his nipple, and walk away all the way home without going to check about his companions. His eyes will remain dry no matter how red they are, and burn with the sudden cold outside the bar. No jacket will hang around his shivering body, left either for his friends to pick up as they left or forever gone and never to be found. Souls all around him will holler at him on his way home, making him retract further into his hunched figure until he reached his destination.

His bed would stay cold that night, uncomfortable and a sick reminder that this was all his life had come to, without the comfort of his own home. He would wonder again for what was several times in his life filled with death if this was the life that was worth living or dying for, whether ruining everything was the right decision. Wondering how different everything could’ve and would’ve been had he kept to himself.

Maybe he would have married a lovely girl and lived a happy life in a perfect image home with children running around the empty rooms having nothing else to occupy their minds. Maybe he would have met a handsome boy and run away from the very home that had caused so much pain and infinite scars, going to a country that would’ve accepted his affair better than Korean and eventually marrying the love of his life legally. Then they would buy the home they had so desperately wanted with children that had spent too much time in the system but finally with the proper family.

In all scenarios, he was alive and free, somehow happy and restful. Not the life he was living regretting the decisions made a lifetime ago.

That night he wouldn’t bother properly taking of the soft makeup Jaemin had applied earlier that evening, dropping onto his bed with the tips of his nose burning with the incoming tears that he told himself wouldn’t come. The sensation of dryness in his eyes that came before the wetness of his cries, soft and silent into his pillow.

No, he wouldn’t be crying for an insignificant demon such as Mark, someone who had appeared in his unearthly life quickly and without warning only to ruin his very perception of the world around him. What he would be crying for was all that the boy represented. The physical standing of loneliness and rejection, isolation from the absolute world he so craved everyday.

He would fall asleep curled beneath his blood red covers and allow the recurring nightmares that came with a life lived in Hell take over his subconscious, visible tear track lines buried into the comforting pillows for them to disappear. The smile that would have shown earlier in the night will disappear into a grimace with each movement, turned ugly and disenchanting.

He wouldn’t forget any of it the next morning when the red lights shined brighter to signify start of a new workday, choosing instead to move forward and start anew. He would get ready and grin right into the large mirror, going forward in on his heels before leaving to work. Souls would smile back, nods of appreciation as they moved past him to carry on in their undead lives. He still had the charm of his teenage self, the class clown who had the ability to make anyone laugh even in the darkest of times.

The Sunshine Killer never stopped smiling, not even in death.

 

-

 

Renjun sat on his seat by the bar with Lucas by his side and an empty glass resting his hand, watching as his friend finally recognised someone in the crowd, stopping all his movements. He watched as his friend turned to Jaemin and whispered something quickly before slipping away. Into the sea of sweaty bodies he went, adventuring deeper until Renjun almost couldn’t see him anymore. He followed after a dark haired boy, one who was sitting alone at a table set quite far enough from the dance floor.

Renjun watched for all he could as his friend finally disappeared from his eyesight and sincerely hoped everything would go right for him. Not even Renjun had the ability to correct a broken soul, no matter how many words were used to mend what could not be fixed.

One night under expensive sheets of Lucas’ apartment when the demon had drawn him close and wrapped his arms around the naked skin of his exposed body was when the boy had told him something so important yet so misplaced in a time like that, that it was forgotten within Renjun’s mind. Now, it came to his mind easily, like words he’d invented himself and told the world a million times until they were memorised in every inch of his mind.

With a pure and loving smile, Lucas once had told him this:

“They say if you die with a broken heart, it can never be mended. No matter if you fall in love in the pits of hell, your own mind will destroy everything you’ve worked for and will be the very destruction of the soul you have remaining.”

Renjun sincerely hoped that wasn’t true for Donghyuck’s sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a new chapter that was rushed but much needed before i start school again tomorrow. hope you had fun reading this and the writing wasn't too confusing xxxxxx
> 
> we got introduced to mark!! and also a bit of lucas and renjun's back story!! unfortunately they won't be a thing in the fic for anyone who was hoping it, i just needed a starting point for renjun's arc to lift off and take shape. hope it wasn't all too rushed for you all and you kind of understood the feelings behind hyuck and mark, even renjun and lucas.
> 
> don't forget to let me know what you think of the fic and leave a kudos if you liked it xxxxx
> 
>  
> 
> [dongyuck's outfit](http://curly-hair.fashionpin.xyz/2019/07/21/milchapfel/)
> 
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>  
> 
> [mark's outfit](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/7b/31/d77b3170f1d6c5bdec7c9ad201306b9e.jpg)  
> thank you, agas-safa


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a long chapter compared to the pther ones, 8k words and it's all donghyuck's past life. also the fact that it's all sun&moon in the past. if you get confused about something which i'm sure you will if you've been perceptive with names int he last few chapters, you'll think this won't make sense. 
> 
> have fun everyone!!!
> 
> IT'S ALL IN ITALICS CAUSE ITS HIS FLASHBACKS OR MEMORIES
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: reference to abuse, smoking

 

_It was the first day of May, 1990 when Donghyuck had received his first bouquet of daisies lain on the front of his door mat, a little squashed with time yet all the beautiful. The way they smelled like broken petals and an alarming stench that was almost like a dead corpse was something he never minded. The overly delicate stems curled under his fingers, warm and tiring with every second under the beaming sun._

_He looked around the street, shielding his eyes from the sun as he tried to look for the culprit of his gift. No one he could think of on the top of his mind would have the thought to give him something as thoughtful as this, have any reason to do so. Everyone he knew either wasn’t close enough or he despised them too much to even try and know anything about him._

_The home was his and his alone, no one else lived with him. When his searching was proven ineffective, he drew the daisies close to his chest before opening the door for him to enter. It was a small home that was shoved into the corner of a quiet street, one that had too many stray animals walking through at night. His father had paid for it the moment he’d exclaimed that he wanted to leave, buying a home not too far away from the his parent’s house. It was his way of keeping his son within his reigns, never truly free enough to properly speak his mind. Some precautions if you will._

_Drawing a vase from the glass cabinet in his dining room, he quickly filled it up with cold water and gently set the stems of the flowers in it, setting the petals carefully against the glass until they sat still, all pretty and poise. He took the vase and set it in the middle of his dining table, turning it in the light of the window rays, letting it reflect off the glass and create a beam along the polished wood of his table._

_Donghyuck dragged himself to the end seat from the vase and sat, leaning down to place his chin on his lain out hands. Through his eyelashes, he watched with curiosity the stillness of the moment, where there was no noise anywhere beside the faint ticking of the yellow clock on the wall. How each petal slowly drooped now that it was suddenly disconnected from the earth that it grew from. Every daisy was a little different in size, some smaller and some larger, uneven sized stems that allowed some flowers to obscure the others._

_There was no note, no name to alert him about what they were for or who they were from, an anonymous tip that made him smile with the simplicity of it all. He loved flowers so much, daisies in particular. They were so sunny and brought so much life to a room when it was rather lacking. There were so many different daisies too, the normal Shasta flowers that circled Gangnam in the spring time, the Gerbera daisy that was only too pretty to look at, Marguerite daisies that decorated Donghyuck’s backyard when he planted them the first week he moved in. He loved every one of them, so much love in his heart that he wished he only knew more about their existence._

_The vase that the flowers were in was a twentieth birthday gift from his mother, only almost a year before his first delivery of mystery daisies. She had given them in its original packaging that was wrapped in a bright blue polka dot wrapping with a golden star sticky to cover the tape at the back. It came with a card apologising the fact that she couldn’t be there for the special day, promising to come the moment she could. He’d opened that present with his girlfriend at the time sitting beside him, one arm lazily wrapped around her as they watched the television. He distinctly remembered the sounds of the wooden clubs hitting something from the Flintstones, how they’d woken him up from his light slumber in his girlfriend’s embrace on the couch._

_It was a Tuesday and he was all alone this year, only his expeditiously withering flowers to keep him company. Not even the band posters that covered the entirety of his bedroom walls could settle the impending construct of confinement and desolation within the very walls of his own ‘home’._

_That’s why the flower gift made him unusually happy. It was out of character, a break in his monotonous routine. A spark of colour in the dark night. He couldn’t dwell too much on the fact of the unknown, an underlying threat that could just be not a threat after all._

_Donghyuck closed his eyes to the sight of his pretty daisies in his pretty vase, and slept._

_-_

_Three months passed before he got another secret delivery of daisies to his, a knock along with it this time._

_He was fast to answer the door, seeing no one on the delivering end and looking down to see the flowers instead. This batch was fresher, more recently pruned from the ground. He moved out and past his threshold of his land to see if he could catch the culprit before they disappeared._

_Yet again to no avail._

_Donghyuck didn’t try to smell them this time, only let them hang upside down with the rotation of his wrist before skipping inside. Again, no note sat beside the bouquet and lay plain for him to take. Was he supposed to take them with regard? With care? What did this person want from him?_

_He’d thrown the corpses of his past flowers away into his garden for the rest of his daisies to watch, tossing them with an almost sinister smile until the flower dust on his hands was brushed away. Various colours just stared at him, silently judging with no words needed to express such emotions. Yet all his actions were to bow and walk back inside, to pick up his home phone to call his friend Taeil._

_Now, the vase was finally being reused for the first time after the birthday roses Taeil had given him with a promised night out together at the movies then arcade. That was a day that couldn’t easily be forgotten even with a wash of glass._

_Donghyuck’s mother had visited his home the day before claiming that it had been a long time see they’d last seen each other, a bright smile shown on her face when she had greeted him at his door. The last time they had seen each other was only four days previous when Donghyuck had come over to return the blender he’d used to make a nice smoothie for Taeil and himself during the day. She had insisted he stay for a little while, bringing several types of sweets that she claimed ‘used to be your favourite’ as a child. He had just smiled sorely the whole time, looking at the clock on the wall anxiously, waiting._

_This time around, it was a box of his old albums in a box, right under her arm as she barged in with that unique smile still hung tight on her face. Donghyuck couldn’t have said whether it was fake or not, but chose not to comment about it._

_That night he’d gone through the box she’d given him and made piles on the attic floor, putting them into sections easily divided. He took the album of Bon Jovi’s ‘Slippery When Wet’ and set it aside to take for Taeil. He knew the older male like the band more than he did._

_These daisies sat in his bedroom next to his mug of coffee for the day, placed behind his photo frame that held a bad quality image of Donghyuck and Taeil with another dark-haired boy who smiled even brighter than the other two. He held the memory right beside his bed so he wouldn’t forget it, the day that Taeil had asked him to finally be his boyfriend by the sunny and quiet riverside. He hadn’t even finished the sentence before Donghyuck had flung himself right into his arms, silencing him with a kiss._

_The blinds were drawn to keep the sun out as he went to sit on his bed, picking up the notebook he was studying for school just before the knock came along. It dulled down his mood back to what it was before, momentarily forgetting about the arrangement that sat beside him, gleaming like a star._

_As much as Donghyuck tried to put himself into the studies, all he could think about was the strangeness of the small tip. This person had to know the very address of his house, know it intimately enough to know how to get in. To know his favourite flower as well, it wasn’t something one could just guess. A neighbour wouldn’t have just done that._

_Nevertheless, the flowers remains fixed on his bedside table creating a slight contrast with the black wood and its white petals. A candle was lit on his desk, pomelo and grapefruit with neroli and cilantro. It created warmth within the room even when the sun was dying down into the clouds, taking its station for the night. It made Donghyuck sigh with pure satisfaction._

_Maybe these flowers weren’t a bad thing after all._

_-_

_Taeil brought the third bouquet to him, a questioning gaze on his face as he extended his hand for Donghyuck to take. The veranda light outside was still on from where Taeil had disrupted the night._

_It was Christmas Eve, only an hour until it turned twelve on the clock. The couple had come from Taeil’s family dinner after a good celebration with his family and the neighbours giving out a barbeque to the whole street. He enjoyed his time by his boyfriend’s side, feeling safe and comforted in his hands. They didn’t tell people about the nature of their relationship however, only mentioned that Donghyuck got highly anxious during events like these hence the proximity between the two. No matter how much they loved each other, it wasn’t the time or place to risk themselves to the rest of the world. Even Donghyuck wasn’t willing to risk the repercussions._

_“What are these?” Taeil asked sitting back on the largest sofa Donghyuck had in his living room. The younger male just shrugged and tried to hide the smile that was threatening to appear on his face. He couldn’t help the slight raise in heartbeat with the view of the new coloured daisies, this time Marguerite daisies that would’ve had to be bought instead of picked. It seemed like too much time put into such a simple gift for an unknown sender._

_Donghyuck smiled to his boyfriend. “Just some flowers I’d asked one of the neighbours to buy for me,” he responded, snuggling back into Taeil’s arms. The grunt that came from above told him that the other was already over the conversation and sighed, closing his eyes when they felt too heavy._

_In his lap the flowers sat, nestled between his drawn up legs and his chest on the verge of near suffocation. They felt light against his exposed skin his legs bare under the oversized t-shirt, almost non-existent as he could feel his breath evening out and the slurs of sleep come and slowly creep up to him. He felt too safe and occupied to do anything different, wanting to take the time and space to his advantage and sleep a little. He hadn’t done much in the past few days since coming back from his family’s house._

_“Sunny, are you sleepy? Do want me to take you to your bed?” Taeil whispered when he noticed the state of the boy attached to his side, softening when he saw the boy’s peaceful face._

_Donghyuck could only whine a little, scrunching his nose and fell more into his boyfriend’s lap. The male took the message and stood up with them both, turning off the TV before lifting Donghyuck up into arms. A small and gentle thump on the floor alerted Taeil to the flowers that had been unceremoniously dropped onto the floor, forgotten and unthought-of. He ignored them and navigated his way through the house, careful not to hurt the younger male as he opened the bedroom door quietly._

_The bed was big enough for the two of them but Taeil only made to place the boy gently down and tucked him in under the covers. He smiled kindly at the boy who had managed to steal his heart in the last coming months, a boy so fruitful and lively in his way of life that it couldn’t be helped to rub off onto other people. He was beautiful and kind, funny and gentle and that was what made Taeil fall in love with a boy like Donghyuck._

_After kissing the top of his forehead and whispering a quiet ‘good night, darling’, Taeil made his way back to the living room where the daisies were still on the floor, sitting sadly on its petals. Feeling bad, he bent down and picked them up, inspecting the desirable flowers as he went and sought a vase to put them in._

_Interestingly, the petals were a nice and deep cerise, the middle a dull dark brown colour. He had seen flowers of such before, at a flower shop only a few streets down when he was buying a bouquet for his grandmother._

_He’d once read that daisies symbolised innocence and purity, white with the colour of the petals. They were said to be a sacred flower for the Norse god Freya, given to congratulate new mothers or cheer up the parents of children passed._

_Taeil guessed if Donghyuck was to be a flower, although not a daisy as much as appropriate to its symbolism, it would be a sunflower, growing brightly in the sun and flourishing when the attention was given to him. He grew with the turn of every sunrise and settled with every sunset. He was beautiful and bright and had too much potential for one person to carry._

_The tap opened and he filled the vase with water, careful not to drop it. He cut the bottoms of the stems and placed the flowers in the glass, rearranging them so every face could be seen. Not knowing where to put it he took it over to the coffee table in the living room where it sat in front of the sofas._

_The clock read **12:07** on Christmas Day, a sad start to the holiday. Taeil didn’t know whether to go back home for the night or just sleep with Donghyuck in his bed as they had planned to do. The younger male had said that he wanted to wake up on Christmas morning with Taeil by his side, claiming it made him feel a lot better. Taeil knew about his insomnia and chose not to comment on it, doing his best to provide for his boyfriend._

_Deciding to stay with Donghyuck, Taeil made sure to turn off every light and check the locks one last time. He quickly brushed his teeth in the bathroom connected to Donghyuck’s bedroom and changed over his t-shirt for a baggier sleeping shirt._

_A candle was lit inside the room that he finally blew out, throwing the room into complete darkness as he slowly and silently climbed into bed beside Donghyuck, holding his breath until he was fully in and covered with the doona._

_There was minimal light coming out from the windows, casting a blue hue into the room but Taeil slowly adjusted to the light. Now, he could see the small features of Donghyuck’s face in the darkness, the long and curled eyelashes smattered against his cheeks and remaining baby fat that made the boy seem younger than he really was. The small upturn of his nose as it curved up at the end, covered completely in small freckles that glowed in the morning light when he’d first wake up. The little pout his lips made in his sleep as he dreamt about whatever it was that he did, peacefully letting sleep take over his entire body._

_Taeil’s friends always say how lucky he was to find Donghyuck in this life and he couldn’t agree more with them. Donghyuck had been a saviour for him in the darkest time of his life, when not even his family could help him or his friends. In a world where he had been alone his own personal sun had come along to allow him to grow. He will always be ever grateful to the boy who had saved his life._

_Eventually, the threads of sleep started to take over Taeil, lying there and watching Donghyuck sleep peacefully. He couldn’t help as his body started to numb over and the energy to keep looking at the other grew too much, instead sluggishly reaching his hand out to thread it with Donghyuck’s._

_He fell asleep to the sound of Donghyuck’s calm breath dragging him over._

_-_

_The florist nearby had put a special on moonflowers for the day and Donghyuck taken the opportunity to buy himself some and admire them, although quite different to daisies, were beautiful in their own right._

_The New Year had come and passed, university had started again and he had just come back from a lecture when he stumbled upon the shop that tucked in between two small cafes. Small and dainty decorations lighted up the small space with colour and light, colourful fairy lights hung around the frame of the store._

_It was exactly Donghyuck’s personality._

_The young woman working at the store greeted him with a welcoming smile, inviting him to look around. She told him about the sales on some of the flowers they were having, saying they would be thrown away otherwise. He thanked her and went around, admiring the different colours and scents._

_“Are these on sale?” he picked up the bouquet of moonflowers, twirling them around in his hand as he admired them. They were a silvery purple white with overly delicate petals that felt like silk. Unlike the daisies that he held in his eyes._

_The florist nodded. “Yes, they’re half price today. One of my most favourite flowers actually, so beautiful.”_

_He hummed in acknowledgement and looked to the daisies only a few bouquets away, just staring at the difference in the two. For once, he didn’t want to buy the daisies he’d always kept his eye on, but rather envied them in a different right. They were pretty and poise, and stood for everything innocent and good-willed._

_“I’ll take these ones then,” he said, passing them over to the woman and pulled out his wallet._

_“That’ll be 10,000 won please,” he handed over the money and smiled at her brightly. “Here you go, enjoy the rest of your day.”_

_He left the florist with a bouquet wrapped with blue wrapping and a silver ribbon around it all securing it. Outside it was darkening slowly, the first peak of colour bursting through the sky as the sun started to set. People were roaming around hurriedly, some coming from work or some going to work. It was a busy place for someone like Donghyuck._

_His walk home was quiet, save from any disturbing encounters as he rounded the corner with his key out and his bag over his shoulder. The bouquet was carefully nursed in the crook of his elbow to his chest so he could easily access the gate of his house, not really paying attention to his surroundings when he walked up the marble staircase._

_It was only as he stepped onto his doormat that he heard the crackling of something plastic underneath his feet and he looked down, shocked to find another bouquet. From his secret gift giver, these were the first to be wrapped in plastic as if they had been bought. No rubber band around them this time, fresh small little water droplets framing the petals as he picked it up._

_These were Gerbera daisies, a colour explosion within the wraps of the bouquet. With two different bunches of flowers in his hand, Donghyuck could clearly make the comparison between the two. Two different coloured wraps, blue and orange._

_And only one without a note._

_The piece of paper had dropped onto the marble floor and flown open with the weight of the thin paper against the hardness of the ground. It lay there with the soft blows of wind moving it slightly, trying to grab Donghyuck’s attention as he focused on the flowers itself. The soft inscribing inside the office paper struck stark to the marble under it, a played off white that had gone through aging and time. The contrast itself was enough to move Donghyuck’s eyes further downward, unhelping when a gasp was let from his lips as he went down to retrieve it._

_There was no name, just a start to the note and an ending. Even Donghyuck’s name wasn’t present on the paper but with every incident falling at his door, he highly doubted it was meant for someone else._

**_For the boy across the corner, I hope you smile today. May your day be filled with happiness and freedom that you so long for. No one and everyone is watching you._ **

****

_The words were in cursive, each letter curling around each other as they formed a sentence on Donghyuck’s personal note. The handwriting was oddly familiar and nostalgic yet he couldn’t exactly place where he’d seen it before, a mind full of murky white waters._

_Donghyuck wondered what the words meant, how the person knew about his troubles and his whereabouts. The person obviously had to know his timetable well enough to know when to come while the male wasn’t present to uncover their identity, coming at a time when the flowers were still beautiful when Donghyuck finds them._

_He didn’t smile now, delicately placing the note back inside the bouquet before unlocking his front door, picking up his backpack up from where he left it on the floor. Some of friends from university were supposed to come around for dinner that night with Taeil coming a little earlier. Stubs of beer sat in the corner of the kitchen unopened with the cardboard and bags of different snacks from the nearest grocery store sat on the island. His boyfriend had come and dropped them off earlier with the spare key Donghyuck had given him last month, telling him the night before on the home phone that he would drop by during the day when Donghyuck was still at school._

_There was only one vase in the entire house and two bouquets that sat conflicted on the opposite sides of each other, waiting for Donghyuck to make his next move. He was sure he had a glass tall enough for the daisies if he trimmed the stems enough, searching his pantry for something suitable as a replacement._

_Tonight he wanted the moonflowers to shine, no matter whether the daisies came with a note or not. The weather was becoming warmer inclining into the middle of the year, ranging away from a setting that was comfortable and into one where he was dared to try new things and step away from his comfort zone. While the daisies brought him a sense of home and remembrance, the moonflowers set him in a stage of prosperity and hope for the future, one he desperately hoped would include Taeil._

_The two had been together for exactly a year now, five months since they’d said their first ‘I love you’s to each other. They knew how careful the two had to be to continue their relationship, the world was still a very conservative place for people like Donghyuck and Taeil. The only people who knew about their relationship were Taeil’s parents and Donghyuck’s, not even their friends coming tonight knew._

_The clock signalled that the others would be here in within another hour and only gave him enough time to take a quick shower before he had to set up. He quickly placed the moonflowers and daisies in their respective containers and slipped the note into his wallet without thought, running into his room to strip and turn on the faucet._

_Minutes later while in the shower, Donghyuck heard the front door slam close and a ‘sunny, I’m home!’ which earned a marvellous giggle on his part. Taeil always knew had to make him smile even when he didn’t want to._

_“I’m in the shower!” he shouted back, hoping the other would be able to hear him. He was proven correct when the door to the bathroom suddenly opened and rush of air blew the shower curtain inwards._

_Taeil’s footfalls were silent of the bathroom tiles as he closed the door again and creeped closer, snagging the curtain open wide enough for him to properly look at his boyfriend showering. Donghyuck though naked, didn’t mind as he leaned open to give Taeil a wet kiss on the lips and tangled his wrinkled fingers into his hair._

_“Hello, hyung.”_

_The other male groaned at the sudden change in atmosphere and drew his naked boyfriend closer, wetting his t-shirt in the process but not minding at all. Their eyes were closed as Donghyuck dragged his mouth even further forwards, deepening the kiss with the permission to pass through Taeil’s now open lips. A few moments passed and all one could hear was the running stream of water wetting Donghyuck’s back, creating steam to circulate between the two as one hand slipped down onto his hip. It paused there for a second, waiting for the groan of surprise to come from Donghyuck’s lips before it started again to lower down onto the boy’s thigh._

_“We can’t do this right now. Not when there are people coming soon,” Donghyuck panted against Taeil’s lips, reluctantly pulling away to find a drenched male standing in front of him looking a little too dazed for wear._

_Donghyuck laughed at his boyfriend’s expression and turned around to continue washing his body, allowing Taeil to sit by the basin and watch. The older male started to hum a tune, one close to Donghyuck’s heart as he let the silent lyrics of ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ roll through the small space._

**_Wise men say, only fools rush in._ **

_He turned the shower off and stepped out, thanking Taeil when he passed over his towel and wrapped it around himself. He rolled back onto his heels as he listened to his boyfriend’s voice take over, spinning around to take in the time on the wall._

**_But I can’t help falling in love with you._ **

_Twenty minutes to seven, only enough time for Donghyuck to get ready. He pulled along Taeil into his bedroom and sat him on his bed while he changed, kissing him quickly on the cheek._

**_Shall I stay? Would it be a sin, if I can’t help falling in love with you._ **

**_Like a river flows, surely to the sea, darling so it goes some things are meant to be._ **

**_Take my hand. Take my whole life too. For I can’t help falling in love with you._ **

_A knock came from the front door alerting Donghyuck that someone had already arrived. He looked to his boyfriend who still had his eyes closed and was singing, allowing himself a few more moments of the space between them before leaving the room quickly to go the guest._

**_Like a river flows, surely to the sea, darling so it goes some things are meant to be._ **

_“Oh, Minhyung! Thank god, you’re the first one here. You can help me take out all the drinks and snacks,” Donghyuck greeted, ushering the dark haired boy inside and away from the slowly approaching sunset. The young male thanked him quietly and headed inside, not failing to hear the peaceful tune coming from the bedroom._

_“Where’s Taeil hyung?” he asked, taking off his shoes and leaving them by the door. Donghyuck signalled with his head to where the voice was coming from, smiling sweetly as he carried up the beer pack onto the island table._

**_Take my hand. Take my whole life too. For I can’t help falling in love with you._ **

_“Minnie, help me would you?”_

**_For I can’t help falling in love with you._ **

_“Sure.”_

_-_

 

_The night of Donghyuck’s graduation from university was the next time he had received his daisies._

_His parents had come to the ceremony, so had Taeil to come congratulate his boyfriend on his successful journey through school._

_He had graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree of International Business, a four-year program that had run too long for Donghyuck’s health and liking. He’d done it all for his father, to get him off his back about what the boy’s future would look like. He hoped his future would look like living in a large house that Taeil had earned with his doctorate degree in Medicine that he was currently specialising in forensic pathology for. He hoped to be married to the male in the first country that allowed it and he hoped to have children when they were able to. He hoped his future would look happy and filled with all that made him glad to be who he was._

_The ceremony had gone on for too long, all the names dragging one after the other._

_“Lee Aeja.”_

_“Lee Beomgyu.”_

_“Lee Daewhan.”_

_“Lee Donghyuck.”_

_“Lee Eunha.”_

_“Lee Gaeul.”_

_“Lee Guerin.”_

_“Lee Hanbin.”_

_“Lee Hoseok.”_

_“Lee Jaebom.”_

_“Lee Jisoo.”_

_“Lee Kyungtae.”_

_“Lee Mari.”_

_“Lee Minhyuk.”_

_“Lee Minhyung.”_

_Forever it went on as the names were called, with each name slipping further into his assigned seat. Donghyuck could feel the stares of his parents as all they could was him, not taking their eye off anything else. The cycle went one as he could feel the pressure of their eyes drag him down._

_It was painful but it was bearable. Taeil was there, sitting right beside them with the widest smile each time Donghyuck turned their way, encouraging him to go further. He sat still and waited because of him, tapping his foot to the ground with each name and drawl of the teacher’s voice._

_The moment he able to, Donghyuck rushed to his family’s side ignoring all the calls and shouts of his friends and only focusing on the inviting open arms Taeil held aside as he ran up to him crashed into them. He could feel his whole body trembling with the impact, breathing in shakily as the other male congratulated him and petted his soft hair._

_“You’re done baby, you’ve made it through. Sunny, I’m so proud of you,” he whispered into his shoulder, not stopping his hand movements in order to calm the younger boy. “You were amazing. You’re smile up there was everything I could’ve hoped for.”_

_Eventually, he had to be pulled away in order to meet his parents, smiling unenthusiastically when they bounded over with fake smiles and tight eyes. He could see the unfiltered judgement in his father’s eyes._

_“Congratulations my son. We’re both so very proud of you,” Mr Lee said, bring one hand up to squeeze Donghyuck’s shoulder gently. Yet it wasn’t gentle, only masked to be as the hand tightened until you could properly feel it putting pressure onto his bones._

_Donghyuck wanted to call out and show his pain but he knew what would come if he did. He couldn’t even look to his mother for help because if he did, he knew she would get into much worse trouble for seeing her son’s mishaps and pain. The bruises he’d seen before lining up her side were proof of that, to never get on Lee Dal’s bad side._

_Mrs Lee didn’t speak up, she wasn’t allowed to unless given permission. Donghyuck couldn’t even help himself to feel bad for his own mother, so desensitised from the behaviour of their so called ‘family’ that he didn’t stop to care anymore. He wasn’t the abused one anymore._

_“I think we should all go for a celebratory dinner for Donghyuck’s sake, yes?” Mr Lee proposed, finally taking his hand away from his son and going to stand beside his wife again. Taeil could feel the tension between the four and decided to save the trouble of any more harassment, stepping in._

_“Actually, Hyuckie and I have been invited for some drinks and food with some of the other boys who just graduated today. We’d already promised we’d come,” he said rather apologetically, bowing a little to show his ‘respect’._

_Mr Lee nodded his head in understanding and turned to Donghyuck inclining his head to ask a question._

_“Is that so, little Lee?” he asked. Donghyuck could nothing but nod under his father’s vehement gaze, pinning him like a collector’s insect all dead and dried._

_There was an awkward pause between all the four of them, no one willing to make the next move. Eventually, it was Donghyuck’s mother that coughed into her hand urgently, moving all the attention into her hand as she moved it away from her mouth all bloodied._

_Donghyuck’s eyes went wide. “Mum?!” he shrieked, almost falling over to her side to pull at her hand. He looked to Taeil and begged with his eyes for his boyfriend to come over, to look at his mother’s blood._

_Taeil complied, ignoring Mr Lee’s protests and walked over to the fragile woman, taking her hand in his soft ones. He looked at the blood in the shining light and turned her hand over, checking the blood clot running down the side of her palm. After a moment’s analysing, he asked her to open her mouth and to keep her tongue to the floor of her mouth._

_“I can’t see much from here but I think you might need to go to the doctor and get an examination. You could have some sort of disruption in your organs that has caused some internal bleeding. It could also be result of smoking or something alike substance abuse,” Taeil looked to Donghyuck for a second and smiled comfortingly. “Do you smoke Mrs Lee?” he asked._

_She shook her head._

_Just before Taeil could ask anything else, Mr Lee decided to intercept and blocked Mrs Lee from Taeil’s view. There was a very vicious and disgusting look on his face, twisted into a smile as if to convince everyone everything was okay._

_“My wife is quite fine, thank you Dr Moon but I think we’ll just have to go home now and make sure she gets some rest. Doctor’s orders, right?” he taunted, that same twisted look stretched out on his face._

_Taeil nodded hesitantly, eyes flickering over to Donghyuck constantly. “R-Right.”_

_With that, Mr Lee clapped his hands and bowed to the two boys, beckoning his wife to his side._

_“Well, I hope you two have a lovely rest of the evening. Be sure to come round and just drop in, I’m sure little Lee’s mother would highly appreciate it,” he laughed, wrapping what looks to be an affectionate arm around her waist, smiling gleefully._

_Neither Taeil or Donghyuck answered and simply just watched them walk away, Mr Lee forcing the other to comply with him._

_The moment the figure of them was out of sight Taeil turned to his boyfriend with a worried gaze and reached out for his hand, squeezing it intently._

_“Sunny, are you alright?” he asked uneasily. Donghyuck melted right into his boyfriend’s grip and for a second almost forgot his surroundings._

_He nodded. “I just want to go home now, it’s getting dark and I’m hungry. We can tell Minhyung and Hyunjin that we’re going home instead,” he replied, trying to spot his friends with Taeil’s hand in his._

_Taeil agreed and made to find them, letting go of Donghyuck momentarily to search for them._

_In the moment that Donghyuck was left alone, a random boy from his class came up to him and smiled, bowing in respect and greeting._

_“Donghyuck, hello! I just wanted to say I admire you and your intellect and hope you have a lovely rest of your life. I got you these flowers to congratulate you, I heard they’re your favourite,” the student said quickly, passing him over a wrapped bouquet of Shasta daisies that were large and grown to perfection._

_Donghyuck made a sound of surprise, automatically reaching for the flowers before he was even able to think about it. The plastic shifted under his fingertips and lit up the space around them, the eroding scent becoming more pungent with the pass over._

_“Thank you, Gyeol-nim. These are very pretty flowers indeed,” he replied, bowing to the student but not taking off his eyes from the daisies in front of him. The student made a satisfied noise in front of him and hung his hands behind his back, moving back and forth on his feet nervously. Donghyuck suddenly looked up then, a thought coming to his mind. “Gyeol-nim, where did you get these flowers?”_

_“Oh, I got them from that small florist place on the way from our school? The one between the cute cafes? That one.”_

_Donghyuck hummed in response, taking in the male’s face in the remaining moments that he had before Taeil came back. There was nothing malicious or such thing as mirth behind his eyes, simply a pure innocence that Donghyuck hoped would take a long time to fade if ever. His lips were thrown into hazardless smile, amicable and happy. It seemed that the other only wanted to please Donghyuck for whatever reason, no hidden intentions like he was so used to growing up._

_He gratefully accepted the gift and bowed once again, making sure to acknowledge the efforts the other male went to gift him the flowers even if he was confused about it all. It wasn’t uncommon in Korea to show appreciation or congratulations through flowers, not necessarily a romantic thing either. He just found it odd since he hardly ever talked to the other male, having worked with him once was the reason he even knew his name._

_“Thank you very much, I will cherish these flowers till they wither, Gyeol-nim. I hope you fortunes and happiness in your future,” Donghyuck thanked him, smiling ever so kindly like the boy everyone knew him to be till the male finally walked away, albeit a little hesitantly. Donghyuck just assumed the red dusting on his cheeks was from the heat and not from their interaction, choosing to let it go._

_Taeil came just in time and watched the student stumble away, eyeing the flowers in Donghyuck’s hand with thinly disguised jealousy. He looked to his boyfriend with a puzzled expression once he reached up to him, eye level with the younger._

_He shrugged._

_“I don’t know what just happened, he gave me these flowers and I had to accept them. I’m not a mean person after all,” he said, moving a little into Taeil’s space. He looked at him through his eyelashes and let them flutter, looking down at the daisies for a short moment before looking back up to analyse the expression on Taeil’s face._

_“I think we should just go get some food with the rest of them, it’s your last time together like this,” was all Taeil said, stepping away from the younger male and putting a fair distance between them. His face was impassive and lacking of any emotion, eyes glazed with a force not even Donghyuck could break._

_He sighed and let the hand holding the flowers drop, the impact sending a few flowers askew and onto the floor all shambled and broken. Donghyuck couldn’t have been bothered to pick them and try to fix them; they were already too damaged for him to even try._

_Taeil didn’t want to listen to him and he had no idea why, his mind a mess with too many pieces of information that had no correlation with another. Yes, he desperately hoped to go home and just spend the night inside with his boyfriend without anyone else, but no, for once maybe it was his duty to listen to his own partner’s requests and understand their point._

_So he said yes and let his boyfriend drag him by the hand senselessly through the crowd of graduated students and families, going to what Donghyuck assumed were their friends standing by the side already discarded._

_“Nice flowers,” was the first thing Minhyung said as they approached their little group of friends, face lighting up with the new subject introduction and falling flowers in Donghyuck’s hand._

_He laughed pathetically, letting Taeil squeeze his hand once more before letting go, sighing silently before going over to sit where Seol was sitting, her legs raised up as she took as drag from her newest cigarette._

_Donghyuck gestured for her to pass it over, rolling it between his fingers without getting burned before dragging on it himself. The instant hit of smoke went to the back of his throat, turning into what almost felt like an invitation and safe space. His safe space. He let the smoke dissipate through his open mouth, his eyes unfocused as he took one last drag before giving it over to Minhyung._

_“Minnie, I heard a secret from some other students today,” Donghyuck changed the subject, looking up from his spot to look at Minhyung who was seated higher than him._

_Seol was the first one to laugh alongside Hyunjin, falling over each other when the blush on Minhyung’s cheeks burned through the fast and approaching night. Taeil stood there beside his boyfriend trying his best to supress a grin that he was trying so hard to hold._

_“Oh no, please don’t say it out loud Hyuck,” Minhyung groaned, eyes falling shut with the embarrassment that was falling on him. “You can’t do that to me.”_

_Jisoo interrupted. “Is this about your little ‘scandal’ that was going around the whole campus?” she questioned, looking devious and proud as Seol jumped on her back and hang tight to her._

_The laughing proceeded for seconds more until Donghyuck stood up and hovered above the boy in question, eyes trained purely on the other’s, letting the sweet caramel of his eyes take over as he smiled and waited._

_“So we shouldn’t talk about your little chlamydia problem?” he whispered and waited, watching as all the blood from Minhyung’s face drained entirely and heard the howls of laughter from his friends behind him. He moved back and settled himself leaning against Taeil, letting the male’s hand move to his hip protectively._

_“I can’t believe the chlamydia outbreak in our year level started with Minnie! When I heard about it I actually pissed myself!” Hyunjin howled, clapping enthusiastically at Minhyung’s sake._

_The daisies lay beside Seol where Donghyuck had left them, deserted and unrecognised until she decided to pick them up and face him with a questioning look._

_“I didn’t see your parents or Taeil with these. Where’d you get them?” she asked all of a sudden._

_The cigarette hung loosely between Minhyung’s fingers as he looked to the flowers then to Donghyuck, surrounded by smoke. Jisoo had stopped laughing and was now smiling purely at the flowers. She was kind that way, always looking at the prettiest of things._

_Smoke in his lungs made Donghyuck want to choke and double over, but he was used to it and instead twirled the wrapping in his hands. The petals were a bit bruised and skinned, gone a dark translucent under the setting sun. It caused it to glow and shine in his hands, fragments of light hitting his eye._

_“Someone gave them to me, you know Kim Gyeol?” he said, lifting his chin. Hyunjin instantly nodded having spent multiple classes with the other male, knowing him personally and in detail. The others weren’t quite as knowing._

_“Wait, the one that had to go to emergency during class? Wasn’t he the one all the teachers were really anxious about for weeks?” Seol asked, taking out a new cigarette out of the pack for herself._

_Donghyuck nodded. “Yes, apparently he had an aneurism in his brain burst or something. Anyways, he was the one who gave them to me as congratulations for graduating.”_

_“Huh.”_

_“That…sounds nice.”_

_“Oh cool.”_

_“Wow, what a man.”_

_They all turned to Taeil. “Did you get Hyuckie here any flowers?” Jisoo asked, tilting her head to the side good-naturedly. Seol nodded her head and looked also, knitting her arms with Hyunjin’s._

_It was a joke their friends liked to play, having Taeil be years older than them and a doctor, that he was like a sugar daddy for Donghyuck. None of them knew the actual context of their relationship, only making jokes to fill in the passing time between the small group of friends._

_Now all the eyes were on Taeil who was the only other one standing other than Donghyuck, shifting uncomfortably on his feet with the new profound attention. He laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck, something that the younger male found awfully attractive._

_“I’ll go get him some when I take him home,” Taeil settled with, earning a beaming smile from both his boyfriend and Seol._

_Minutes passed and settled down talking, watching as people slowly disappeared from the arena and broke out outside where they were in the fresh air. They laughed when they saw a few parents looking at them with disgust, giving a curtsey to some._

_Eventually however, the group decided it was time for dinner and slowly made their way to their favourite pizza place within Seoul and decided to split the bill. Since Hyunjin and Seol were together, they took their share and split it with the rest of them, Taeil insisting to pay for Donghyuck. They all spoke over dinner and laughed, going back to talk about Minhyung’s sad little incident._

_By then, the flowers sat in the one spare seat between him and Seol, laying pathetically and without life on the hard wood. It didn’t draw any attention and if the chair were tucked in, it would’ve been forgotten. But Donghyuck kept an eye on it, constantly checking it to make sure they were okay, that they were safe. He had this sudden feeling that they could’ve been stolen or watched upon, his paranoia biting at the back on his head._

_The night was fine, Taeil and Donghyuck said goodnight to the rest of them and gathered into Taeil’s fresh car, no words exchanged in the comfortable air between them until they reached Taeil’s home._

_“Are you mad about the flowers?” Donghyuck suddenly asked before they could get out of the car, drawing his sweaty palms into his lap. He refused to look at his boyfriend._

_Taeil sighed deeply beside him and sunk into the driver’s seat, bringing his hands over his eyes. It took a moment before he spoke again, filling Donghyuck’s mind with unnecessary nerves and ticks of uncertainty._

_“I’m not mad about some naïve tiny male having an obvious and massive crush on you, that would be below someone of my age, Sunny. I’m just upset and confused over all these random and weirdly significant flowers that you’re getting without you even stopping for a moment to think what they mean!”_

_Donghyuck was silent for a moment, his eyebrows drawing up into a frown as he tried to think about what Taeil had just said._

_It wasn’t the first time he had thought about the person behind the spontaneous gifts or the meaning behind them and it wouldn’t be his last. The flowers were something oddly intimate to the male and he couldn’t help but wonder the relation he had with this person, how they knew him and why they had decided to use his weakness to get to him. He didn’t know whether it was meant to be a malicious act or a kind one._

_He turned to Taeil and pulled out his wallet, flipping his different cards and useless pieces of paper until he found what he was looking for. He took out the crumpled piece of office paper and gave it to Taeil, watching as the male took the paper with sceptical eyes and read it._

_The reaction was instant, eyes blowing out and hand dropping from his face, darting back to Donghyuck then to the paper constantly._

_“You got this with your flowers?” he whispered, drawing closer to his boyfriend as if he was afraid that someone would be listening in from the outside._

_Donghyuck nodded and turned Taeil’s hand gently, the one that held the paper and held it in his own. The warmth was comforting on his skin and only invited him further, settling his face into his neck and breathing out shakily. A hand came to settle around his waist and drew him in even with the barrier of the centre console and stayed there._

_Like this, he felt safe and comforted, at peace with himself and everything around him. Taeil’s arms felt like home, something wonderful to come back to every night._

_“I’m always right behind you, always there for you. Remember that.”_

_Donghyuck tried to remember it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hoped you liked the chapter, it tool a long time for me to write anyways. don't forget to comment and tell me what you think, i love hearing everything you have to say about it. 
> 
> thank you again xxxxxxx
> 
> agas-safa


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're at 8k words with this chapter! it's a bit of a big one. ALSO WE GET MARKS POV TOO, get pumped.
> 
> don't forget to leave a kudos and a comment about how you like the fic so far if u even like it, if u don't comment on that too i guess.
> 
> who's pumped for superm? or sperm as i like to call it cause i sure am, finally some taeten interactions and lucas and mark YASS!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: blood, murder
> 
> anyways without further ado, enjoy my long ass chapter that took a long time to write then a longer time to edit.

 

“Have you ever been in love?” Jaemin asked one night while they were cooking a meal together, the three of them. They were at Renjun’s apartment this time, on one of the highest levels of the Inferno Tower where you could clearly see over the whole city, spanning kilometres afar until the eye could see no more under all the darkness of the sky.

Tonight was especially beautiful this high up above the dead society. The carnival was up and flaring in the short distance, the screams of joy and fear falling short to Donghyuck’s ear behind the glass. The lights lit up the night with concordant colours, bright flashes of yellow and red, green igniting into the air like the cast of a spell.

The stars in the sky looked different to each person who looked at them depending to what they saw on Earth. For Jaemin, he could see the Southern Cross burn brightly because he fell asleep to it every night in Australia. Donghyuck didn’t pay enough attention to pretty things like the sky to know what his looked like.

The question had been directed to Donghyuck and him alone, all actions pausing as he turned to the soul. It was an affronting thing to ask, a question he wasn’t prepared for. Renjun could tell through his eyes the pain that it brought front.

“What kind of question is that, Jaemin? I thought we said no questions about the past,” Renjun scolded, turning back to the soup he was stirring beside the stove. Jaemin blushed deeply and whined a little, hair falling into his eyes as he turned away from the two.

Donghyuck sighed. He knew how sensitive Jaemin could be at times. It reminded him of the people in the psych ward that Taeil used to look after during his residency, staying up all night on the phone to tell him about them.

“Renjun’s right, we could ask about your past Jaemin but we don’t. I could very much ask you how you died or why you’re even here in the first place. You seem like too kind of a person to be in a place with people like me.”

That settled down the dead boy a bit, forcing himself to relax his shoulders as he started chopping the vegetables again. They were making a famous Korean dish called Sundubu Jjigae, a spicy tofu soup that was Renjun’s favourite during school. Tonight was in honour of the boy’s death anniversary.

The air turned a little reminiscent as Renjun began whispering small things trying to remember the recipe his grandmother taught him and allowed Jaemin to slip past and take control.

“I can answer the question if you want Nana, it just might not be the same,” he said after a small while when everyone was abnormally quiet. Jaemin immediately agreed, clapping his hands as if he was an elementary child.

“Yes please!”

Renjun coughed and smiled dreamily, his eyes glazing over as if he was recalling a memory. It was times like these that Donghyuck remembered they were all living and breathing people with deep feelings at one point, not the law-breakers they were now. That Renjun and Jaemin were only teenagers when they died and cast to Hell.

“My parents loved me a lot, I was a second child but also their favourite. Everyone knew I was their best child, not even Fujing could argue the matter,” he started, moving away from the pot to let it simmer.

Jaemin snorted and tucked his face behind his shoulder to hide the smile that spilled over his lips. “Isn’t that a bit egotistical to think that about yourself?”

Renjun shrugged. “Not if it’s the truth. Besides, I live in Hell now, I don’t think my ego is an issue.”

That was true, Donghyuck thought, and allowed the boy to go on. He’d always been interested in how his life had turned upside down. He had this nagging feeling that it wasn’t all that he made it out to be and that while Renjun was only a kind person here, that maybe that hadn’t always been the case.

“I had this friend at school, she was from England, Delilah. She came from the international school down the road and we used to talk all the time. My friends used to make fun of me for practicing my English skills on her and called me ‘lover boy’ all the time,” Renjun said.

“I guess it what they said was true but I hadn’t realised at the time that I was in love with her. It was only when she got herself a boyfriend that I finally realised. She was my best friend and her boyfriend hated that, he tried to tear us apart by telling her to stop talking to me. It didn’t work though, and eventually he told her to choose between me and him. She deleted his number the next day.”

“Damn, what a girl,” Donghyuck whistled and laughed, relaxing back into the counter. A long time ago, Donghyuck had been damaged goods that never allowed himself to make close enough friends, never once let himself think about the times before his first kill. Maybe there had been someone to make feel something as strong as Renjun felt, maybe even more, but that was a lifetime ago and a lifetime he no longer had.

Renjun nodded his head and smiled, taking the tofu and placing it into the pot. “I know. One day, I had finally managed the courage to come out to her and tell her I loved her. She told the second after that she was leaving to go back to England. She gave me one kiss that day and walked away. The next time I saw her was behind the defendant’s seat in court and with tears down her face.”

Sometimes, when the worst happens to us, we let it go. People recover and stand up again, drawing a smile onto their face to signify that they were okay once more or that they were at least _trying._ It’s easy to recall from your mistakes and make yourself better for the rest of your lifetime, to allow yourself to be mended again into something even stronger than before. It was an admirable trait Donghyuck had envied many of the people in his life for having, growing up with every misstep they made.

The souls of Hell weren’t like that, they were the weaklings that had succumbed to the devil and played with his games. Just like Adam and Eve, they were the ones who ate the forbidden fruit.

The first thing Donghyuck had realised about Renjun when they’d first met was the immense amount of patience and longing there was in the boy, the subtle movements of his body that were never rushed or uncalculated. Every little thing he did was constantly measured to the point of accuracy, the self-control perfected and practiced until it was a dance only Renjun could perform.

When the worst had hit Renjun, that self-control had _snapped_. It had dissolved into a solution of pain and longing, so concentrated in its potency that it had eaten right through the cord that was keeping Renjun upright. He fell and many fell along with him.

The look on Jaemin’s face indescribable. There was pain there, obvious pain for a friend he only knew in death and the knowledge of that alone was a struggle to grip. The lost look that he was giving Renjun however was something so contusing in Donghyuck’s mind, acting as if he was that person Renjun was recalling. There was a glint in his eyes that told more than it should’ve, that maybe all their stories crossed over and reflected the same qualities more that it should’ve.

“Funny thing is that she kept on visiting me in jail, every week for regular visitations. She stayed in Korea for me. She didn’t stop believing in me even with me behind bars, kept on telling me that I’d come out the next month or to never stop believing in myself. I had thirty years on my sentence with good behaviour but all she kept on telling me was to believe. She said she’d be there waiting for me at the end of it all. Of course I didn’t believe her because who in their right mind ever waits for someone that long?”

Donghyuck interjected. He felt he had to. “I would if it was someone I had loved that much,” he said softly, treading lightly in the waters that said ‘beware’. Renjun laughed softly and shook his head, small strands of hair framing the face people once loved so much.

“I would too but I highly doubt she loved me to that extent,” he breathed. The words sounded like they hurt, somewhere beneath all that tissue and bone, past the muscles to where the body was the most vulnerable, a deep and aching pain that one could even feel in death. That was the magic of heartbreak. “My parents stopped visiting me somewhere through the third year, a few months before I died. One of the Sin’s made me watch my funeral as their punishment, held me still and made me watch as Delilah wept like the Weeping Woman and my mother fall to the ground in utter grief. My sister looked completely impassive and if I hadn’t known her better, I would’ve thought she didn’t even care.”

The way Renjun spoke with a lack of pain, how each syllable sounded detached and foreign to him was only a small portion of how Donghyuck believed them to be so different to each other. Each word hurting but his tone impassive and deteriorating. Sounds of spring that were let out each time the younger soul opened his mouth to speak, something so pleasant to hear that one could almost believe they were back in their little live bubbles where people actually believed in the person they once were. One word from Donghyuck reminded everyone who he _is_ , the ugly monster under their child’s bed waiting for the moment to pounce and kill. The only objective in his short life.

Donghyuck swore with his own memory that he’d once seen Renjun somewhere in Seoul, bunched together with his friends in a crowded mall and a sundae placed sweetly in his hand. The smile on his face was what had drawn Donghyuck’s attention then and the similarity now. He hadn’t been so far away not to see the little hearts the lights made in his brown hearts nor the way his laugh sounded through his group of friends.

But it also might’ve not have been him. It could have just been a play on the lights or the way the clothes on his body sat a bit differently, hanging loose on his skinny figure. The sound of his laugh could have just been strung along with every memory of Renjun as he has him now, just a figment of imagination that his mind had desired to articulate. Maybe the boy didn’t like having long hair as the boy did at the mall, he liked plain and simple.

Now knowing this added information about Renjun’s friends, he thinks it might’ve been him after all. There were Caucasian kids with him and a particular girl he remembered to be sitting quite close to Renjun and acting overly comfortable with him. That must’ve been Delilah. At the time he’d just thought they were dating, but they weren’t.

“Long story short, I died the day after Delilah came to me and said she wanted to be my girlfriend. Obviously, I said yes since I’m a weak motherfucker as proven the next day but that was last good day I had. She kissed me goodbye and skipped away happily knowing I was watching right after her,” Renjun finished his story, sighing with all the weight of the ‘what ifs’ on him.

Donghyuck knew especially what that felt like.

Jaemin sat up from leaning on the counter and broke the silence, going to the fridge. “Did you have any other best friends other than her?” he asked. He had a bottle of beer in his hand and passed it over to Renjun.

“Yeah I did actually, his name was Jeno. The three of us were actually super close but I ruined it by killing him accidently. Just murderer things,” he took the bottle gratefully and acknowledged the other murderer in the room with it, chugging it down as if his eternity depended on it.

That shocked Donghyuck. Like, really shocked him. As in, dropping-the-beer-Jaemin-had-just-passed-over-to-him-shattering-the-glass-on-the-now-wet-floor shocked him.

“Wow, even I wasn’t that bad Injunnie, at least I killed people who deserved it,” he snickered, dropping down to clean his mess. Jaemin looked mortified, frozen in his spot. Renjun just snorted and kept drinking.

“Yes Hyuck, you liberated the world of evil and cast away all shadows on Earth, how very noble of you.”

“You make me sound religious,” he grumbled.

Renjun looked at him. “We are in Hell right now, I think religion is appropriate in your context honestly,” he stated. Jaemin had to agree.

“Not that I much appreciated this turn of events on my very innocent question, but I’d just like to point out that the soup is actually currently boiling over,” Jaemin drawled, eyes closed in a satisfied expression like a tweeting bird on a branch.

That got Renjun off and ready, spinning back to the pot and blowing on it rapidly to simmer the soup down. It was almost admirable to Donghyuck how dedicated the boy was in getting his grandmother’s recipe right, paying no disrespect to the food his elders once made for him.

But then Renjun slipped and fell right on his back, sprawled out on the cold floor with pain lighting up his eyes.

“Ah, Hyuck you fucking psycho, you missed a spot!”

 

**⛤**

 

Mark had lived a long life, shorter than many, but more experienced than any other human.

He still remembers the day he sold off his soul to the Devil in exchange for his family’s survival, a small sacrifice for a big benefit. They never allowed them to see him after that day, only allowed to check up on them through his own sigil and the blood money he exchanged for a moment through the looking glass. He was never allowed to show his face to anyone in his past life, a danger that could disrupt the whole system if they were ever to find out.

Mark was born in Canada to a loving family going through the crisis of the Industrial Revolution, a family with no money or land to call theirs. They were an infestation to the population, Asians who had managed their way through the system and made an unlikely home somewhere far away from their origins. No one had wanted them.

Their struggles his whole life growing up had been well hidden from the youngest child out of two in his family, all smiles and kisses whenever the subject was brought in Mark’s presence. It was never meant to be a concern directed his way.

Mark on the day of his birth had been given an English name as a strategy to integrate into the neighbourhood better, his parents hardly ever speaking to him in Korean and only in English to distance the whole family from the life that they had been running their whole lives from. This helped them a bit with outsiders, taking interest in the Asian family that spoke and acted just like them.

Mark’s older brother, William, had been the handsome one out of the two their whole life, stealing the limelight off him any time he supposedly had it in arm’s reach. To others, he was ‘exotic’ and ‘such a handsome boy’. The male was dangerous and hard to handle with, like a snake he went about manipulating people to give away their money to help his family the best he could. He was tall and lean, tan and face full of freckles that only made more attractive to anyone that walked past him. He was the perfect idol to a younger brother like Mark.

That was there way about life, for twenty-three years his life revolved about fitting in the best he could without making a sound, stomping down any opinions that may have arisen with the process of growing up to only listen and respond. It was the most he could do.

His parents never once told him his Korean name until the last stages of his poor life, because though he had one, his parents were too ashamed to assign it to him. An identity that belonged to him but never given for him to choose because society mattered too much in their small little family, no sacrifice was worth that.

Maybe that’s why Mark had decided to make his final sacrifice a memory.

Jonathan had been the one to stand by him his whole life as he grew up, like a guardian angel he became his second brother in all the moments William wasn’t, a protective barrier from all the evils that went against him in this world. Mark only took too long to realise that evil was personified into his angel itself.

He knew what Mark would become, who Minhyung would impersonate. It was all just a waiting game.

William had once walked past him and had never come back, claiming that there was a new neighbour down the road that needed introducing. That day he had a wide smile on his face, brown eyes gleaming behind his shaggy black hair, all feelings of warmth dug into those pits Mark had always grown so jealous for. He was the perfect boy for everyone wanting to court him, literate, handsome, smart and kind. It was everything Mark was not.

Hours later when William still had not returned home was when Mrs. And Mr. Lee grew concerned for their oldest boy never strayed far from home when he’d promised them before he’d come back for dinner. Their run down home in the slums of Vancouver weren’t hard to find and only misdirection would be all it took for you to lose it.

The three of them had gone searching then, having waited enough time to see if William would come home on his own, they went straight to the house he had told Mark about just before leaving. He still remembers to this day even after his whole transition the sheer anxiety that rolled and collected inside his stomach as they slowly approached the pristine looking home.

If he closed his eyes today, he would still be able to image the front of the house, how it looked like such a friendly face with its two-storey house and windows that made eyes. The door that sat right in the middle, so very symmetrical that it was a surprise to Mark that he hadn’t noticed the home earlier. The flowers and plants were all well kept as well. It looked like a home William would want to go to.

Jonathan had tagged along the way there, playing in the streets with the other guys that lived around the slums and ran over to his side, immediately sensing that something was wrong the second he stepped closer to see the family’s face.

The door had been open when they reached out for it and made a horrible squeaking noise as it swung itself forward and into the house. Mr. Lee said he’d go in first, calling out his son’s name with an over dominating sense of calm that Mark hadn’t even known his father could hold and went inside. The rest of them followed only for Mark’s sense of dread to climax further.

Jonathan was there for him, he held his hand clammy hands and squeezed them in his own larger ones, signalling that everything was okay. Mark truly believed sometimes that the older boy _was_ his guardian angel sometimes and allowed himself to believe that the other could see into the future knowing that everything would be okay.

Little did he know that even demons couldn’t do that.

Inside was so small compared to what it looked like on the inside, something that ticked off Jonathan right away, his frown deepening with every second deeper into the home. It felt like they were playing a game and every step further was a step away from getting out. Mark could sense the claustrophobia that William would’ve gotten walking down those hallways alone or not, maybe with another hand in his leading him away.

Every call to his brother fell short with all the furniture absorbing the sound. There had been no reply.

Mark remembers his mother asking him then, right in the middle of the dainty formal room where everything was an off yellow with ruffles, if this was the right place. He had said that it was. From behind her, Mark could see the distraught look now consuming his father’s lined face. Yet it Jonathan that spoke.

“I think we should go check upstairs,” he had said, seven simple words that creeped along Mark’s skin and made him shiver so violently that he had dropped the crystal ball that he was inspecting. It fell on the floor with a loud _thump_ and rolled. It kept on rolling, unnaturally so.

And when it finished rolling, it stopped by the spiral staircase that led up to where Jonathan had suggested with a sudden _clink_ of finality. It made Mark want to vomit.

One by one, they went up the narrow stairs, making sure not to break the steps with their added weight. The smell of tobacco heightened and mixed with something else as they stepped up into the small second floor, the setting sun billowing into the house through the clean windows, illuminating every single and many dust particles that flowed through the air with their arrival.

Jaehyun once said to him if there ever was a memory that you wanted erased from your mind, the Devil worked in different ways to make it possible. He said the removal of a memory was the one of the only free things that one could get in Hell because more than wanting to get rid of something so horrible, the feeling of a hole in your mind that you could never again fill is ever worse than that. Losing your memories is the worst possible thing to humanity and the Devil knows how to play about it.

Sometimes, Mark thinks, he wishes that he were strong enough to be able to erase some of those memories. That way he wouldn’t have to remember the sudden and strong stench of faeces wafting through from the main bedroom, the only room with the door wide open. He wouldn’t have to remember the apprehension evident in his father’s shoulders as they walked closer to the opening, how his mother held her hand up to her nose to fend off the disgusting smell stuck in the air.

She hadn’t been the first the one to scream is what he faintly remembers, it was Mark who wasn’t able to hold back his voice. All the nausea that had been painting his organs red was suddenly at the forefront of his throat and just allowed him to look away from it all to surge up all that he had eaten up before onto the floor, adding along with the smell.

Mrs. Lee was crying when she saw it all, loud sobs that came with seeing your eldest son stripped naked and dismembered all around the room in an assortment peculiar to the one who had done it all.

There had been blood and waste matter everywhere, fresh and glistening in the sunlight as the four of them stood there watching as the blood slowly seeped into the dirty carpet never to be washed out. Pain and suffering stitched into every inch of the room, a personal trap in Mark’s mind.

The world had gone dizzy for the next few moments of his upending life. Nothing more than flashes of bright light and a faint buzzing of his father’s screams for his wife to move back. Mark did nothing but stand still and let it all adsorb. Then he let it seep in. And then he let himself scream his throat raw.

William had a smile carved into his face, from one ear to the other. Sitting perfectly on the ledge of the window, completely clean of any blood.

His brother had always told him to smile more, told him not to take life so seriously. This was his last smile for his brother, eternally cut into his skin as reminder to always be happy. Smile more for us Mark.

Jonathan had been the one to go out to find the police moments later when Mr. Lee had moved his wife away from the scene with the worst look of distaste and sadness clinging onto his face as if it was the only thing he had left. When Jonathan came back, Mark had run away to the other side of the street with vomit stains down his already tattered cotton blouse, sitting on the curb where the horse-drawn carriages were lined up for use and the moon was high in the unsuspecting sky.

He’d never thought that would’ve been the last moments to breathe, with the ghost of the smell in the house clogging his nose and the manure of the horses lining up the concrete under his stitched shoes. All he could do was breathe in and out to stop himself from having a panic attack and waited for Johnny to come back from his quest and come to comfort him. In and out.

He had to breathe.

Pretty boy William Lee was brutally tortured and killed with no humanity left in the psychopath that had done it to him, the police had reported when they got to the scene. No one cared about the pretty Korean boy that used his body to give money to his family, absolutely no one. No care as they collected the pieces of his body and threw them in a plastic bag to be transported away. The Lee’s had no money for an autopsy, the boy had to be dug into the dirt straight away before his blood even got cold. No one even bothered to search for the murderer.

Jonathan had looked at Mark with sad eyes that the boy couldn’t have deciphered at the time. Was he sympathetic to for a boy who just brutally lost his only brother? Was he upset to lose a friend his own age?

It all made sense when Mark didn’t even get to goodbye to his parents the next day, when in a cloud of his own and his parent’s misery, he’d followed Jonathan out to the forest far away from the smoking city and to a secluded area where the horses they took there could rest and eat.

The hopelessness that ran through him like second blood is what had made him look up to the large mansion hidden between all the trees, a tall and welcoming home that trumped anything Mark had ever lain eyes on in the city. There even had been a large paddock beside the mansion where the family that lived here could manage their own animals. It was everything William could have wished for and everything Mark had envied.

That day Jonathan had turned to him with the softest and most painful look on his face, all this deep-rooted sadness held within him as he spoke to his best friend, his little brother, the boy he’d practically raised as his own.

“I know you feel guilty, I know you Minhyung,” Jonathan had said to him that particularly lovely day, staring straight into the boy’s eyes because he knew, he _knew_ exactly what the problem was. “All you can think about is money and that’s why you feel guilty, isn’t it Minhyung?” he asked not even waiting for a response.

“You feel guilty because now your whore brother is dead and no one else in the family can work meaning your family can gain no more money than they already have. Your worried more about your parents and what will happen to them, isn’t that right?” Mark had nodded guiltily. “It’s okay to think that way, Mark. You’re not a horrible person.”

Mark had cracked then, all the frustration and blame suddenly boiling and pulling out of him like an attractional force, tears rolling up into his eyes as he gritted his teeth and tried his hardest not to cry. “But I am! This is all my fault, don’t you see it?! He told me he was going to go and I didn’t even stop him because just the very idea of his whatever business disgusted me! He disgusted me! Everything he did was better than me and for what, to sell his body like the little slut he was?! He deserved everything he got but now my parents have to deal with everything they shouldn’t!” he had screamed into the trees, his shoulders shaking with the anger ebbing out of his body and into the earth. All Jonathan could do was watch.

“Ma-”

“My family didn’t deserve any of this, didn’t deserve this life they were given. Maybe William and his perverse ways could’ve been avoided if we were just given something else. All I ever wished for was to be part of a normal family with some money so we could live comfortably. I wish my family wouldn’t be so scared of a language they were brought up from and actually taught me about my ancestry. I’d only ever been thankful to William for providing for the family when none of us could, only ever loved him because he was still a kind soul that managed to look after me. Now that man is gone and replaced with a debt on our heads,” and that had been it, the hammer on the nail that sealed his coffin. The monster Mark had been holding back. “Hyung, I can’t do this anymore,” he had whispered, shoulders slumping with every sentence of defeat stringing around the trees, creating a net to enclose him in. Such a handsome boy who failed to see his own potential.

Jonathan’s resolve had crumbled when he drew in the young male into his overworked arms, holding onto him tight with no plans to let go. The tears that soaked the material of his shirt never ceased as minutes passed, the silence of the woods echoing every cry held within his embrace as Mark cried for his parents, for his brother, for himself, for a life he could’ve had.

“Mark, I’m going to give you an offer that is highly important and I want you to listen to it, okay?” he asked eventually, patting the younger male’s back as he sniffled and gathered himself. Mark could only nod in that moment and pull back, rubbing at his eyes like a child who just woke up from sleep.

“You can have this house behind me and a fortune along with that if you hand yourself over to me and sell your soul to the Devil.”

“What?” Mark had asked, so confused and emotional that he couldn’t believe what Jonathan was saying.

“Mark, I want you to become a demon like me, you can live forever in the underworld,” Jonathan had told him, eyes slowly turning into steel. Mark couldn’t have ever believed him.

“You, a demon? Johnny, you’re a like an overgrown puppy, don’t ever suggest such atrocities.”

The next second, Mark had witnessed as Jonathan’s face broke and changed, eyes closed as his canine teeth elongated into long, needle thin fangs that could puncture Mark’s neck easily had he asked him to. The snap and breakage of every bone set Mark’s neck off, flinching under each sound. When he opened his eyes, the brown on his iris had been overtaken by the black of his pupil and ran with veins of blood red around it. He looked like a character out of a book.

It was a horror to watch just as he’d seen the day previously, a game so unorthodox that he couldn’t even imagine playing it. The light reflecting off Jonathan’s new, pearly-white fangs made Mark nauseas and that alone made him want to curl over and hide.

“What-?”

“I told you and you didn’t believe me. I had to show you. I know you wear that cross around your neck to protect you Mark, but you can’t be protected anymore, not from any of this,” Jonathan pointed to the sparkling silver band that hung around Mark’s slim neck, a small silver cross dangling from the chain. The boy automatically held onto his token as if to hide it from the ‘demon’ that represented everything opposite to what he believed in.

His faith was the only thing that kept him hopeful after a hard and long day’s struggle, the only thing that let him look at his brother with the love that used to be abundant in his younger years. It was his only barrier between sanity and the fall into the abyss.

It was all he had left.

Jonathan had wanted to take that away from him, snatch away his beliefs and everything that made him whole. He was offering something unexplainable, so wrong and tempting.

The church had told him to push away any temptations like could corrupt the mind, saying that God was always by his side in every decision he made. They’d already cast out William when they found out his ‘profession’ and sexuality, and put all their expectations on Mark to be the better son of the Lee’s. To salvage the little respect the family had left. His Fathers expected the most out of him, a young man who’d only just come out of childhood and puberty to flourish into a well entailed and handsome young man who would take his brother’s place as the first child. He told himself never to fall into such temptations as William had.

But now William was gone and his family was suffering to the debt of the state even more than before. No more of a comparison if there wasn’t someone to be compared to. No example for the Church to hold against him, no double expectation.

This wasn’t for him, Mark had realised that sunny day where all the birds sang so brightly above his head, all of this, everything the two sons had put themselves through, it was all for their mother and father. The two people in their lives that had brought them to this life and raised as good people, ones that left their own families behind and started anew on a ship to go to Canada. People who had risked everything they had just to take a risk on a country with completely different customs and language, just to create a better universe for their children.

Mark owed it to them, Jonathan knew that just as much as he did, he needed to make their lives aright again. One last pay of tribute not just on behalf of him, but William also, one last act of kindness in his name.

“If I do this, you have to listen to my terms of agreement, okay?” Mark had tried. Jonathan watched him for a moment or two and then nodded, easing back a little.

Mark took his last deep breath in. He willed the pain to go away soon.

“If I do this, I want to be erased from my parent’s memory, I want to be only a faint idea or dream. When people look at them, I want them to be the Lee family who only just lost their only son. You give them all this fortune and tell them to move here where no one will ever disturb them again. My _eomma_ and _appa_ are still too young not to have any more children if they want to, they don’t need me to be another tragedy in their awful lives.”

Mark remembers how Jonathan’s brows had crinkled up at the suggestion, concern and everything Mark didn’t want going for the younger boy. He’d known it was a big favour to ask, to erase oneself from the people you loved so much that you were willing to sacrifice everything you stood for and believed in just because you believed in your family more.

“Are you sure? Do you know how big of a thing that is to ask?”

Mark just waved him off. “I’m taking away everything I believe in just for them, I can’t hurt them more. It’s more than enough for me to know that I’ve helped them have a better life and keep them in my own memories to know that I was their son.”

“I also want to always wear my cross, no one can take it away from me wherever Hell is,” he’d said the name with such shame and disgust then, so representative of his behaviour and hate that carried along the rest of his undead life. Always one hand to his chest.

Jonathan had frowned and shaken his head, his black irises looking softer in that light. “I can’t do that, Mark. You’re cross stands against everything the Devil works for; the metal will burn you once you enter Hell,” he tried to tell Mark but the boy couldn’t take it.

These were his terms.

“Then I’ll have a scar, I can deal with the pain. All I want is my family to be happy again and I don’t care if that’s without me.”

That day, in the middle of a large clearing where the branches and leaves created a dome of shadow over the mansion beside them, Mark was turned and stripped of his soul, falling pale into Jonathan’s arms as the demon easily cried tears drowned in guilt and sadness.

He’d carried the young boy through the mansion’s gates and lain him down around the beds of flowers, tears lining the path where he looked at the frail boy, the warmth that was still evident in his pretty face. His eyelashes were still from the fluttering that it usually did when his nerves got to him, or the closed eyes that were usually open with such strong emotion no matter what that emotion was.

Beside the assorted flowers and the warm sun, on the dewy grass and the birds happily singing in the trees, it was a beautiful sight to behold. Mark was so still and waiting, sickly in comparison to every living thing standing around him like a pinned butterfly on the wall. His soft tufts of hair lain out against the green grass that wetted it and turned them into little blades of protection around his relaxed face. The worn out clothes that he couldn’t afford to repair ripped in all the places that protected his most vulnerable sides.

Jonathan hadn’t stopped holding his hand the whole duration of his turning, even as he reaped his soul and sent it up to heaven where it would be stored. The demon could only pray for the first time in centuries for the boy to come back, rocking back and forth not to lose his fragmented mind.

Decades later when Mark was fully trained to become a reaper just like Jonathan and had staked the world, someone would tell him what was at stake in those crucial moments of waiting with those dainty flowers around him. If Mark’s body didn’t properly respond to the reaping, his soul would’ve be stuck in the middle land, gone from this world but never fully transitioned into anything more. Just…stuck.

Mark could still feel the pain that ran through him the moment he shot his eyes open, reaching up for air once more only to feel cemented to the ground. The pure and unfiltered panic that ran through him as he was reborn and shot through the universe back into his body clogged his nose and throat, burning through every piece of clothing that stuck onto his body with sweat.

He’d barely registered Jonathan’s voice calling for him to calm down as he tried his hardest to rise from the wet ground, his eyes blind and unfocused as his breathing heightened. He couldn’t see anything, every feeling on his face was like a punch to his sensitive skin and the grass scratching his bare arms were creating little irritated abrasions that licked his skin with fire. His whole body felt cold on the wet dirt but fire within, a new body ready to cut itself out.

The first thing he could do was call out, whimper for Jonathan’s name once he slowly found his voice. It was scratchy and painful to use, like fire-whisky running down his abused and fresh throat, alcohol to a fresh wound.

“Johnny-” he’d cried, tears freely flowing from his closed lids. All he’d heard was the shout of relief and a body falling heavily on his own. The sound of his sobs had been loud to the world, violent and broken noises that scared away any of the wild animals around them.

Just like a lightning bolt, it shook the ground and cracked the ground in two by their feet.

The ground crumbled around them and Mark couldn’t breathe. It felt like it was the final punishment and trial to gain God’s forgiveness, the Devil disguised to be God’s messenger. Like a confession, everything was waiting just for Mark to speak and confess his sins.

The feeling of falling is what Mark remembered next, the absence of pressure on his back as he bounded down, Jonathan wrapped around him as his very own protective charm. Everything was heightened suddenly, every hair on his body raised and the deathly rush of darkness past his ears had deafened him a moment. The blindness in his eyes dissipated the lower they fell, an infinite fall to the bottom of the Earth and through.

The moment he could open his eyes under the pressure of the gravity, all he could see were stars. Mark looked at them now, Polaris in the distance so close that he could reach out for it. 200 years ago when he looked around the black space to see the stars for the first time, he’d been amazed. There he’d been, selling himself and going against every moral bone in his body expecting the epitome of evil to surround him the second he was turned. He hadn’t expected such a pretty sight.

When the feeling of falling stopped to a point where he felt like floating, Jonathan had told him to close his eyes again. It was all too easy to obey, eyes slipping shut under oil and let himself fall back into whatever had been keeping him up. Suddenly, everything had turned cold.

Years ago, when Mark had found out that even demons could fall in love, the world had been a better place for humanity and his heart. Every reminder by his superiors that even he couldn’t ever predict the future as angels could became a sobriety to his every day, a tumour pressing on his mind. Never once did it fall off his consciousness, every movement he made tracked and planned to avoid any mistakes that could’ve been made in the future. He’d learnt and he’d responded like a child learning to walk.

The first time he’d learnt about this fact however had been the first moment he’d stepped into Hell with an aching body and fractured state of mind. Never had he anticipated to be immediately taken into custody by faceless black figures and away from Jonathan, screaming for the older demon’s name, screaming and crying with such volume the whole dead population could hear him.

Had they excused him obediently and appropriately, he would’ve been calmer and more willing to part by Jonathan’s side, yet they took him in his most vulnerable state and dragged him to a sky-high building that was only covered in glass and went up miles. Without a moment to relax their grip, they’d pulled Mark through to the highest level, his sizzling feet slugging along on the cold floor. From there, he could see all the blinding lights below him, a raging fire under the stars.

He’d been named the demon Mammon, demon of greed and pursuit of selfish gain. Right in front of the head demon of Eden, Asmodeus, in an armchair too big for his petite size, he’d been named the Lord of a title that never belonged to him. Attributes he’d spent his whole life running from. All he could set himself a reminder of was the insistent burning by his throat, clawing through his skin and creating a shaped mark on his melting beliefs.

From that moment forth, Mark knew he couldn’t ever go back, not back to a life that was no longer his. As years passed, he watched as his parents mourned for the loss of their only child and then recover, giving life to his baby sister and then brother. He smiled every time he had the blessing to watch his siblings run around their spacious home, playing with the horses they raised and the cows they started to make an industry with.

With the progression of the handle on the clock in his own lone home, the human world flourished and saddened, the Lee’s suddenly booming in business and becoming more successful than ever before. They passed through the world wars with ease and money, flourishing during the Great Depression and passing through the 20th century in millions. Mark knew finally that he had made the right decision.

Years after his own death when his siblings were grown adults with their own children, Mark sat far away on their land as his own mother fell to her feet during a heart attack and watched her pass in front of his eyes. The tears that came never were discovered as his sister ran to help her mother, the screams of craze and desperation taking him back to that very day where he had discovered his very own brother muddled in a pool of his own blood. The woman he had admired for so many years was suddenly not there anymore, gone to heaven where’d she always belonged. She was a saint the moment Mark had first ever lain eyes on her, his own hero. But how he knew his sister adored her, her painful cries silent in a world so far away from the rest.

How his very own mother had looked straight at him in her last moment and whispered “Minhyung…” so low that he could only hear because it was meant for him to hear. Her death falling with a name barely off her lips, heart seizing with completion of her hard-earned life.

The next year when his father fell asleep with so much grief in his heart that he never stood to wake up, Mark was there, holding his warm hand as he slowly slipped away. How his long fangs had snagged at his lip while he sung his father the lullaby he used to sing to all his children during nervous nights and starving ones. The warm, invisible grip around his throat every time he tried to speak, tears transparent in his voice. He would never be able to forget the pressure felt against his palm, there for a moment when his broken voice sung all the words by heart, the slip of recognition felt in his final moments before his grip loosened one last time and it was just no one present, no soul left in the large house. Not Mark’s, not his father’s. He was soulless and alone.

From that moment forward, Mark had never had any purpose to come back to the human world.

Not until 1988, the year he finally got to fall in love.

 

❂


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry in advance for such a short and horrible chapter, i just needed to get something out. important things happen in this chapter however.
> 
> tell what you think of this work and comment your opinions, i love to hear them
> 
> agas-safa xxxxx

 

There’s something liberating in the way that Donghyuck stares at the window display, shoulders slouched against the frosting glass and the shiny lights that shone from within. It was the end of the day’s workday, shops closing and others opening. There, by the sidewalk in one of the busiest streets in Eden where souls swarmed around with the overcrowd, he stood in his very own fur coat just staring through the glass, anticipating.

The arcade. Behind the glass, where the points of lights and the screams of enlightenment bled through the walls of containment and into his thirsty ears, was the most popular arcade within Eden. The flashy points of the games where set crystals could be won and games of Hell Escape were lined right along the closest wall. It went stories up into the sky, something out one’s dreams, something so unrealistic yet also tangible in death.

Donghyuck had only ever been once when they went to celebrate Jaemin’s 10th death anniversary and the boy was too low to do anything indoors within the safety of their own four walls. It had been a wild night that he couldn’t remember much of, the walls of his apartment discovered wet with his vomit and a random soul in his bed. That’s how disconcerting the arcade in Eden was.

It was a skyscraper on its own, levels for all sorts of games and mazes, a whole new world contained within four walls. His most favourite level were the maze levels where they were designed to articulate your worst nightmares and turn them into the most impossible mazes. He’d heard stories where souls have broken their one law and been sent to Limbo during a haze of insanity.

Maybe he’ll ask the boys to go with him soon, convince them to come for a day of childish fun instead of partying. He thinks Renjun will need it, the male has been a bit anxious the past few day cycles and neither him or Jaemin have been brave enough to ask him about it.

So the arcade would be good, it was made for the intention of greed and lust and ego, all the sinful things that made a soul in Hell. All the sinful things the residents of Hell took pride in.

“This arcade is one of my favourite places in Eden,” a voice said to the side of him, startling him away from the glass to look at a perfectly smiley Jaehyun standing beside him with his hands in pockets.

The cold wind ruffled the demon’s hair and created glowing Goosebumps on his skin, and if Donghyuck didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought he’d seen an angel instead.

Jaemin was right in admiring the hellboy’s appearance, he was absolutely too beautiful to set a foot in a world like this and away from such prettier things like flowers or the sun. His smile battled the rays of the sun and his dimples melted cotton candy right to the floor, making even the sweetest things seem savoury.

Donghyuck came to realise slowly that looks weren’t everything anymore. Morality was much more attractive.

“What are you doing here?” he asked immediately, because frankly, he was scared of the demon. He wouldn’t show it, nor would he ever say it, but he was terrified of the demons Mark associated with. Not only because of their close association to the demon he was spending too many hours trying to forget, but also because of how they terrorised the residents of Eden. The poor souls who lost so much in the mortal world were still punished for their sins in the next one.

Jaehyun lifted up an eyebrow from the response, turning around slowly to face the smaller soul. “I was planning on coming here since it’s one of my friend’s transition anniversary in a few days and we wanted to make him feel better about it cause he gets all depressed about it when the day comes,” he shrugged. Donghyuck could see the slight shiver that ran up the demon’s back.

“Who?”

“You don’t know him, his name is Mark,” Jaehyun said. Donghyuck was surprised.

He lifted his head and looked carefully to the demon’s face, searching for any signs of any misleading information. Yet it was absent of any of that, just a blank canvas with his brows smoothed out and smile fallen from his lips.

“I know who Mark is, I’ve met him before,” Donghyuck said matter-of-factly, nose up in the air.

Jaehyun looked surprised to hear that, eyes all of a sudden wide and open. If Donghyuck looked closely, he would even be able to see the vulnerability in them, a stark contrast to the rest of his stiff body. He looked like a statue with moving eyes.

Donghyuck revelled in it.

“You know him?” a question. Donghyuck nodded. “He’s never talked about a mortal before, maybe years ago, but definitely not now,” Jaehyun frowned, oblivious to the obvious hurt slashing at the soul’s face. Of course he wouldn’t be able to recognise it, demons feed off the painful emotions, not make them better.

Of course Mark wouldn’t talk about him, he already knew he was insignificant in the demon’s life. They’d only properly met once and another time when Donghyuck caught him in one of his worst moments. No one would talk about someone like that, not even his fucked up soul.

He just felt so _close_ with the demon.

“I’ve met him before, I know who he is but we’re not close.”

“Ah,” Jaehyun said as if it would make anything clearer.

Neither would talk as they stood side by side, eyes on the arcade, just watching the habitants of Eden enter and leave. They had nothing to talk about, no news, nothing in common. Donghyuck shouldn’t even be there in the first place.

He looked over to the demon and just watched him, taking in the way the cold air blew at Jaehyun’s soft pink hair, strands flying around him. His cheeks were pink too, just as his button nose was. If Donghyuck hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought he was misplaced in a place like this, that he was just a guardian angel who was visiting. Everything seemed angelic about the demon, even his smile, his laugh.

But Jaehyun was the worst of them. He knew how to cheat, how to do it well. He was able to sense someone’s worst pain and play with it like a toy. The demon knew how to kill and steal with no remorse at all. You would’ve almost thought he was a psychopath had he been in the waking life.

“What are _you_ doing here?” Jaehyun asked, turning to the younger soul.

Donghyuck shrugged and turned away from the glass at last, facing the demon. “Just looking, thought I might go in there soon with my friends,” he said simply. Jaehyun nodded.

“Want to come over to my place?”

Donghyuck agreed.

In the cold Hell air, the two of them walked through the impenetrable crowd and the traffic of Eden where all the gassy cars lined the roads. They walked after each other blindly, so close together in such a big city that is wondrous how the two found each other.

It didn’t take long for the traffic to thin the more they walked towards the richer area of the city. Here there were black trees that bled red when each leaf would fall, there were warm lights that filtered through the streets rather than the obscuring neon ones that blinded your eyes. Here it looked like a fairytale turned pitiful. A wondrous disaster.

“Here’s my home,” Jaehyun said after a while when they walked closer to the centre where pretty lights lit up the tremendously sized fountain that spouted fresh blood from the mortal blood to symbolise all the new deaths occurring in that second. The stop in the street looked like a private section of the area, no one dared enter the sacredly beautiful centre for only the most elite demons in the city.

And Jaehyun was, he ruled Eden beside Taeyong and Jonathan as some of the most important demon figures in the bible. Blood and pain ran down their hands where it was gathered in a fist, pooling at their elbows before dripping on the hot Hell stones beneath them. That’s what they looked like to the rest of the population here.

Donghyuck walked behind Jaehyun and obediently followed him as they walked around the fountain to one of the bigger mansions on the cul de sac. He couldn’t be bothered opening his mouth to speak with the demon, he didn’t feel it was the best time to do so. Souls weren’t necessarily allowed in a demon zone like this.

The gates opened and they stepped through just as easy as it was, and trailed along the walk path. The gravel underneath Donghyuck’s shoes turned soft and the lights that were strung around each tree shone brighter in his face. It was both revealing and revelling to feel such warm lights light up his skin outside in the fresh air rather than inside. It gave the flickering memories of the sun on skin and suddenly he missed it too much.

“There are some others at my house, just letting you know so you’re not surprised,” Jaehyun said to him before he opened the door with his blood beading at his finger when the door creaked open, the large black doors splitting open in the middle.

Wordlessly, they entered the mansion and the doors closed behind them with a _click._ It felt like Donghyuck had stepped into his very own arcade where every corner was a maze.

The moment he stepped through the threshold, that itching feeling of constant cold was gone from his skin and instead something warm replaced it instead. Something so comforting and unlike everything he perceived Jaehyun to be. It felt too good, like being back at home in Seoul.

Chandeliers flickered on the moment they passed through the space with a hesitant flicker. Both of them simply followed the long corridor until it reached its end, past the large clearing and the spiral staircase and to the living space.

The first thing that Donghyuck saw was there was in fact, demons sitting on Jaehyun’s lush and oddly very comfortable looking settee. That these demons were actually the most notorious demons in Eden.

That these demons were Taeyong Lee and Johnathan Seo. Asmodeous and Astaroth.

“Jaehyun, why is there a plain soul in your house?” Johnathan was the first to question Donghyuck’s presence, not a movement out of place as he sat up right beside Taeyong, his eyes never leaving Donghyuck’s body.

Jaehyun just simply shrugged and went over to grab something from the kitchen. “I just invited him over, it was cold outside and he looked super lonely and I thought I could liven his dead life up a bit.”

Taeyong snorted behind his hand and looked away.

“I don’t think ‘liven’ and ‘dead’ should be in the same sentence,” he said, surprising Donghyuck a little.

Donghyuck was still standing at the entrance of the room, unsure whether he was allowed to move any further, what might happen if he did so. This afterlife was better than none at all.

Johnny looked at him, tilting his head to the side to inspect him fully. Donghyuck could almost feel his eyes roaming his body. It was uncomfortable and sickening but it made him feel unable to move at the same time. He couldn’t even speak.

“What’s your name?” Johnny asked him, putting him on the spot. He hadn’t even been invited in yet.

The air seemed to shift with his thoughts and Jaehyun looked at him completely baffled by the soul’s sense of power in a room with powerful demons sitting around just watching. He looked to the two lounging demons then the soul and back.

“Donghyuck, you can sit down,” Jaehyun permitted, answering Johnathan’s question with a raised brow.

Without taking the time to question either demon, Donghyuck immediately made for the loveseat opposite Taeyong and Johnny and sat himself down facing away from them. They were much too scary to deal with. Even the most notorious criminals were scared of what lived under their bed at night.

And Hell was always dark.

Taeyong scrutinized him with his legs crossed over each other, his body leant forward to take in every detail of the soul’s being. Demons had the ability to detect every trace of past relationships on a person’s body, to sense every emotion if they looked hard enough. They could see past fingerprints on his skin that had been scrubbed raw, Taeyong could see every hand that had pressed into his side, every kiss laid on his lips.

 “Why are you here? I’m sure you have a TV in your house,” he said his first words to the soul and grunted, miscoloured eyes flashing.

“Um, I was bored and Jaehyun invited me here.”

Taeyong looked at him with a brow up, looking to the demon in question. His mouth was open for his fangs to be shown to Donghyuck, shining like opals and blurring his vision. None of the demons decided to showcase their true eyes to the soul and kept them plain, making it much easier to hunt for prey.

“Are any of the other guys coming?” Jaehyun questioned as he took out alcohol for himself and started making a drink. Donghyuck’s hand itched to ask one for himself.

Johnny shrugged and fell back into the cushions with a sigh. “Maybe, Yong is coming but I don’t think anyone else. Moony is busy with managing the bar and Minnie has to look over operations for today,” he said.

There was something about what Johnny said that pulled at something deep within Donghyuck, at the very foundations of his being. It was unrecognisable what it was but he could feel it there, snagging at his chest in a place that used to be beating.

The name ‘Moony’ held a lot of attachments in his mind. Every moment that he was called Sunny, the other would be called Moony in return. When he was sad, ‘Moony’ was the first person he went to and sought comfort from because he knew he would always receive it.

Once upon a time, Moony was the love of his life and he was the sun. Not the Sunshine Killer advertised on every screen for the public to see, he was a _star._ He lit up every life around him and flourished in the worst conditions because that was all he knew how to do. And his Moony was beside him every step of the way.

“How’s Yuta been?” Donghyuck suddenly asked, falling out of his own mind and back into the conversation. Everyone looked startled for a moment and it satisfied the _hell_ out of him.

It was Jaehyun that answered him when no one else would, just choosing to stare at him with those paralysing eyes of theirs.

“Out with some chick, still sulking about his human love I think,” he said, simply shrugging. Johnny laughed and shook his head.

“I remember when Mark had one of those. Most painful thing to deal with after the reaping and all,” Johnathan tutted and turned to Taeyong. “Remember how long he cried for? He was absolutely shattered.”

Donghyuck thought about it for a moment and realised that this other ‘mortal’ had been mentioned more than once the amount of times he’d heard about Mark. Every turn his character took, this ‘mortal’ stood beside the hellboy like a puppet on strings, waiting to be manipulated for another story. He desperately wanted to know this person was.

“Who were they?” he asked, his voice small as he cleanly directed the question to Johnny.

The room was silent for a moment where nothing with a soul stared back at him, questions all lined up in their eyes.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’ve heard about them many times and I was a very curious human when I was alive,” he responded.

Jaehyun came over with two drinks in hand and sat on the floor right beside Donghyuck’s feet. He nodded his head to the other demon and passed over the other drink to the soul, not even looking at him as he did so. The murderer thanked him and smiled behind his glass.

As if the nod from Jaehyun was a signal, Johnathan only rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in irritation.

“I don’t know much because Mark always wanted to keep him secret from the rest of us but I know that he loved the boy too much,” Johnny started, smiling sadly to the floor. Taeyong gripped onto his shoulder. “It’s funny to think about how much he’s grown without his soul, he used to despise his brother when he was still a human because he liked men.”

Donghyuck’s brows went up. “So basically he was a homophobe?”

Johnny looked at him sharply. “You have to remember this was back in the 19th century and his family was very religious. Their church excommunicated his brother when they found out who he was and they basically brainwashed Mark to despise the boy who slept in the same bed as him.”

“He met this mortal in his first Reaper mission. He doesn’t talk about the boy anymore but I still remember him saying that he was his subject’s boyfriend and became friends with them as plan of the mission. He would always use the words ‘bright’ and ‘sunshine’ to describe the boy whenever he would come back for the night to report back.”

That made Donghyuck cry out in shock and looked to Johnny with wide eyes. “They used to call me that,” he breathed silently. But even demons could hear that.

“What?” Johnathan’s voice registered in his mind and he looked up to find the demon on the edge of his seat, staring right through him.

Donghyuck swallowed every emotion held in his throat and smiled. “I said, that’s what people used to call me,” he watched Jaehyun turn his head beside him to look at his eyes. Jaehyun was one of the only demons that knew about his true identity alongside Mark and Yuta. “They used to call me the Sunshine Killer.”

The reaction was immediate. Taeyong being the more relaxed one during the whole conversation was suddenly on his feet and any colour that painted his face was gone.

The other demon was a different story. His face looked to be impassive even with the red flush gathering at his ears when his eyes clouded over. His mouth was open as if he was stopped mid-word and his tongue kept flashing at his fangs. Jaehyun all but sat there with his drink in hand a bowl of salted strawberries in his lap.

Donghyuck didn’t think he would get such an immediate reception to his secret and was surprised when Johnny had to pull Taeyong back down to the cushions in attempt to calm him down. He looked to Jaehyun for help but the demon was only looking straight ahead out of the window.

“Can you tell me more about the mortal? I love sad stories,” Donghyuck asked, smiling weakly. He pretended that he didn’t notice the hand pushing into Johnny’s back to go on.

Smile more for us Donghyuck. Sunny, smile bright.

“His reaping was done when his own subject came to him and asked for it, to turn over his soul to the heavens the moment he died. I guess Moony knew he was going to die soon after,” Johnny continued, eyeing the soul.

Donghyuck tilted his head to the side. “Really? How did he die?” he asked. Suddenly, he was very interested.

“That ‘mortal’ that Mark was so in love with, Moon’s boyfriend.”

A breath in, a breath out.

“He killed him.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone, this is the longest chapter i've written so be prepared. there's a lot of pov switching and jumping around. i hope you enjoy this chapter cause it's 9k.
> 
> pls don't forget to leave a comment if you like this, what you think about it, if you even like it or not, anything! it makes me feel really special when i know people are reading my hard work.
> 
> love u all, safa-agas xxxx
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: panic attack

 

_“You know when it’s night time and you just stare out through your window to like a street light or something, and you can just feel your eyes start to suddenly water and then all of a sudden you start crying?” Minhyung asked the rest of the group, turning his face around to look at everyone._

_In turn, each of them stared at him worriedly and looked away, passing on the cigarette in order. Only Donghyuck’s eyes remained fixed on the drooping boy._

_“Is everything okay, Minnie?” he shuffled closer to the boy and nudged his shoulder. He looked over momentarily to his boyfriend, a question clearly written all over his face._

_Taeil and Minhyung had gone out for the whole day while everybody else set up for the New Year’s party at Jisoo’s house. If something had gone wrong, it would’ve been then._

_Only that his boyfriend shook his head in response and looked away, turning to pay attention to the nice selection of daisies in the vase Donghyuck filled up with the flowers he received on his door right before they left._

_Minhyung smiled and patted Donghyuck’s hand that was on his thigh and leaned in against his shoulder. Right there between them, everything smelled the same, the mix of the younger’s sweet and spicy scent with Minhyung’s leathery one._

_It was a home undiscovered._

_“I’m fine, I just miss home a lot.”_

_Home. The word looked different for each of them. For Donghyuck, it looked like waking up every morning with Taeil by his side. For Hyunjin, it looked like his family back in Busan and their three dogs. For Minhyung, it looked like every story told over the dinner table about his family back in Canada and the house they had in the countryside._

_In a fit of weakness one overly drunk Saturday night, he had admitted every insecurity to the boy of sunshine, any sickening worry that occupied his mind too long. He told Donghyuck everything about his three siblings, his saintlike parents, the home they sacrificed so much for. He explained the business they did, their growing rise in economics._

_But he also told him about the concerns he had for his family’s health, the nightmares he had about his older brother dying right in front of his eyes, the homesickness that rendered him with a finger down his throat._

_Seol was the one to shake them all out of their discomfort and laughed unsymmetrically. She lifted the cigarette from Jisoo’s lips to her own and blew out the smoke to Hyunjin. She smiled._

_“Guess who made cake for tonight’s special occasion? Not me!” she laughed beside her boyfriend, which earned a flick to the forehead from Jisoo._

_“I made the cake, not her,” she corrected, rolling her eyes at her best friend. The efforts to lighten up the mood worked immediately and Minhyung’s head lifted right off Donghyuck’s shoulder._

_“Cake? I love Jisoo’s baking.”_

_Everyone laughed along with them and the air was light again, stark against the night sky and the stars reflecting back at them. It was only an hour before the new year would come._

_All of them collectively brought the dishes inside and help set up for dessert, Taeil playing Queen on the radio and they danced no regard to the outside world. It was just them within those walls. Donghyuck right beside Taeil, hands taking his._

_The cake was a black forest sponge cake that Jisoo had spent the whole day preparing with Donghyuck by her side. Upon Hyunjin’s insistence, they brought all the plates and cake back into the sunroom._

_The candles still burned fragrance into the cold air even with the multiple heaters around them, blankets drawn close to their bodies in seek of some resemblance of heat. This close to Taeil, Donghyuck could easily see the exhaustion lining his boyfriend’s eyes, every fall of his lashes the deeper he got into the blanket he shared with him._

_But he promised that tonight was the time and not for rest._

_When Seol cut the cake for all of them and opened the dessert wine for each to pour for themselves, they all laughed knowingly when Jisoo’s glass ended up having the most and clinked their glasses together in cheers._

_“We only have nine minutes left till countdown, should we talk about our year?” Jisoo suggested, looking over to Donghyuck. He always started things like this._

_He set down his glass and stood up, well aware of the hand securely placed on the lower of his back, his pillar of support as he spoke. When he smiled, it lit up the room like a string of fairylights._

_“We all graduated and got a job. Honestly, I thought when we all graduated all those months ago that we wouldn’t even have contact with each other this time last year,” he smiled to each of his friends, eyes growing warmer with each turn. “Look at us now, we’ve all come so far in our careers, our relationships, this friendship. 92’ was truly our year to flourish but 93’ will be our year to shine.”_

_Everyone watched and smiled as he spoke, nodding along to his words. There was a point of nostalgia sitting in the air that no one could quite place, fine mist over their heads that lifted their spirits. Taeil was looking up at him with the whole world in his eyes._

_It was perfect like this._

_“Look at Hyunjin and Seol, already engaged and in love. They make the environment more vibrant and lift everyone’s spirits with their happiness. By the way, you have to promise that the three of us will be your groomsmen,” Donghyuck eyed the male in question and made the whole table erupt in laughs, patting Hyunjin’s back as he looked at Seol embarrassed. “Amen!” Taeil and Minhyung said to that, raising their glasses in the air before downing the contents._

_Donghyuck turned to Jisoo, a knowing smile on his face. “Exhibit B, Kim Jisoo. The girl who fell in love with cooking and Lisa Manoban at the same time. Won’t admit to both since her parents are controlling and homophobic fucks but we, her friends, will always have her back. Soo, darling, we’ll help you set up a business in the baking industry so they can’t shit on you.”_

_Jisoo blushed pink, due to the alcohol in her system or his words he didn’t know, and smiled in appreciation. Her love life had always been a fragile topic of conversation but her friends had already had a discussion about it without her and came to an agreement about what they should and shouldn’t say. It made Donghyuck much braver to put every trust in his friends, to reveal the darkest petals blooming in his heart._

_“Lee Minhyung who came all the way from good ol’ Canada to study with the rest of us just because his brother was annoying him too much. That’s what too much money does to a person,” someone snickered, “but we all love you dearly. You’re probably one of the most vibrant and alive people I have ever met and you just laugh at everything someone says to you. It’s a very desirable trait I’m sure everyone on this table wishes they had at one moment in their lives,” Donghyuck said to the smiling boy beside him, looking at him specifically and him alone._

_In this home on the very edge of Itaewon, where each chair was mismatched tucked in into the dining table and random posters of Jisoo’s favourite photographers were stuck to the wall, with each person sat at a different chair in the cool and dark sunroom and the heaters on, there were six souls combined to a point that became indistinguishable to any outsider’s eye. So much experience and pain had been shared amongst them that it felt like each storyline strung into one. Each character became the main protagonist to the same story._

_“Four minutes till countdown!” Seol warned him and urged him to go on, to finish his speech. Donghyuck wondered what he would ever do without them._

_“Ok, Taeil. In every sense and manner, you’re completely different to all of us sitting at this table tonight. While we all studied together the same thing, you were miles ahead of us studying Medicine because your dream to help the world was bigger than anything else. Even being a few years older than us and you still gave us all a try, you didn’t think we were stupid or childish. You didn’t think I was dumb or stupid for coming up to you, you never had such judgement in your eyes.”_

_“When I felt like I was going to break in two, you were there to stand as my support, so strong and steadfast that I sometimes thought someone like you couldn’t be real. Without even realising, you became the most reliable person to each of us and I don’t think any of us could imagine a life without you. I don’t think I can imagine a life without you,” he admitted. His breaths fell short into the cold atmosphere and everyone just looked at him, wondrous gazes piercing him through the heart. No one could say anything._

_Not even Taeil._

_Jisoo broke the silence by standing up and clapping her hands, gaining the attention from the group. “Two minutes till New Year’s. Minnie, will you come and help me with getting the sparklers and party hats?” she asked, already pulling up the hesitant boy. Donghyuck wouldn’t look into his eyes._

_“Sure,” he said and then they were both gone. Taeil only wrapped the blanket more securely around Donghyuck’s small frame positioned him closer to the heaters decorating the room around them. Seol watched them the whole time._

_Within a minute, the two were back with multiple different party accessories bundled in their arms. They passed them around as quickly as possible, counting slowly as each member prepared themselves with party hats and sparklers. The doors opened and the cold air rushed in as they went onto the deck to count along with the rest of the country._

_“10.”_

_Donghyuck looked to all his friends and smiled, grateful to have such powerful forces in his life guiding him aright. He never thought he deserved anything more than the marks his father used to give to him on the back of his thighs._

_“9.”_

_He was 23 now, growing in ways he never thought were possible. Everyday, he learnt something new about himself, things he never thought capable. Every night he prayed that the next would be better, that the sun would shine a little brighter._

_“8.”_

_The daisies still came to his door ever so often, most times they would end up at the bottom of the trash can as per his boyfriend’s orders. It couldn’t be helped. He closed his eyes and prayed that they would stop coming, no moment of weakness was worth the array that sat on Jisoo’s counter in her pretty vase. It was the reason why Taeil left this morning to go out with Minhyung, away from all the arguments Donghyuck put up to just keep the pretty flowers for just one day._

_“7.”_

_He looked to Taeil now and held out his hand, eyes all-knowing. They were going to do this, and they were going to do it right._

_“6.”_

_Minhyung watched them from the corner of his eye, a frown pulling at his lips as the numbers went lower and Donghyuck became less aware of the others around him._

_“5.”_

_Turned to each other, Taeil smiled to his boyfriend and brought up his hand to cup Donghyuck’s soft cheeks. He’d never seen someone shine brighter._

_“4.”_

_“Ready?” one of them asked. The other nodded._

_“3.”_

_“2.”_

_Donghyuck looked once up to the sky and then back. The fireworks started going on around them and their friends cheered._

_“1.”_

_Their lips met in the middle, soft and welcome and with reaction as they heard gasps come from their friends. No space, just a smile woven against each other as Taeil kissed the breath away from Donghyuck. It was just the softness that kept him going, his life support held on those lips._

_“Happy New Year!” Seol shouted and that tore them apart, hands at hips when they turned to their friends with the biggest smiles. No one looked surprised, just happy._

_Donghyuck detached himself from his boyfriend and pulled his friends into hugs individually. “Happy New Year! We’re gonna rock people’s worlds this year, watch Seol’s nightclub become the biggest thing!”_

_Minhyung, Donghyuck, Taeil, Seol, Jisoo and Hyunjin lit up the sparklers as the fireworks went on above them and it was beautiful._

_They all knew that 1993 was going to be the best year._

⛧

“I have another reaping mission, don’t I?” Mark asked first thing the moment he walked through his own apartment doors to find Johnny sitting quietly on his couch. He was alone and with drink in his hand, not even the television on as he stared outside to the city below them.

He turned his head and smiled at the hellboy, rising from his seat to give him a hug. It was something that he did every time he saw the boy, somehow still over protective over him after so many years together.

Mark had just come back from grocery shopping and set down the bags with a curious gaze trained on the older demon the whole time. Johnny never came to his apartment unannounced.

“Now why would you think that?” he retorted, coming over to help Mark put away all the items. The hellboy smiled at him.

“You never come to my apartment without calling in advance because you always say ‘if you lived with us then I wouldn’t have to’.”

Johnny tutted and ruffled Mark’s hair.

“I actually came here for that and to tell you something else,” he admitted, bottles of blood packed in his arms as he put them away. He wouldn’t look at the boy and Mark knew that it was serious.

The relationship between Johnathan and Mark had always been complicated. In the first few years that he was turned, he’d stopped talking to the demon that stripped him of his soul and stuck with his friends instead. He’d formed his friendship with Lucas that way during his lonely days spent entirely at every bar known in Eden.

Eventually, after years of training and influence from the other demons around him, Mark started to slowly allow Johnathan back into his life again. He likes to pretend to himself that those years lonely and away from the only person he could still call his brother weren’t the most painful times he’d experienced, even above seeing his brother’s murder scene.

Johnathan was there when he fell in love the first time and then again the second time. Arms wide he came to Mark after each of his parent’s passing, holding onto the fragile hellboy who was still innocent in a world of evil. When Taeil came with him to Eden for the first time, Johnathan was the one that caught him when he collapsed.

Mark has learnt now that Johnathan was always in fact, his guardian angel.

“What is it?” he wondered. Finishing with packing everything away, he moved around the kitchen island to his couch. He turned the radio on and turned to his Johnny.

There was hesitation in every step Johnathan took to come and sit opposite Mark, crossing his legs underneath only to look down. Some people didn’t realise that demons needed to breathe.

“I met the Sunshine Killer.”

Mark didn’t know what to say, how to react. If was a miracle in itself that he didn’t just fall apart right there in front of Johnathan. He’d worked too hard to keep this secret asleep.

“The Sunshine Killer? I met him once at the nightclub, he came over to me and introduced himself,” he just said, reaching over for a bottle of water. Johnny stared at him weirdly.

“You spoke to him? What he say?”

Mark shrugged. “Nothing, he saw me at the bar when I had my confrontation with Lucas and he wanted to properly introduce himself to me,” he said as calmly as possible. His palms were already sweating and his fangs ached.

They wanted something they couldn’t have.

“He asked about the boy you fell in love with,” Johnny confessed, keeping his eyes on the hellboy the whole time.

Right then and there, in a world where he thought he could have all the control in his own life, in his very own home is where he finally broke. He lost every bit of control he had left in himself the moment Johnathan finished that sentence.

Johnathan came over and- “Mark are you alright?” Mark was on the floor, with his knees drawn to his chest. He couldn’t breathe. “What’s going on, are you having a panic attack?” –felt like vomiting when he was angled to the side so the older demon could properly look at him.

“Fuck, your hyperventilating, breathe in Minhyung!” he couldn’t really hear anything but the disgusting rush from his brain to his chest and back. It was clogging every artery, his throat, anything to signal out for help.

There was bile rising up in his throat as he tried to listen to the words Johnny was rapidly shouting in his ear, but the ringing in his ears kept getting louder. He couldn’t make it _stop._

“-get some blood for you-” Johnny scrambled around him and- “-what is happening-”

He didn’t know for how long they sat there with Mark falling lower and lower. Time worked differently in Hell, it could’ve been seconds, months, years but he would never know. All he could feel was a hole underneath him pulling him down.

“Mark, I need you to listen to me,” Johnny called out to him. His voice was urgent, direct and clear but it wouldn’t matter if Mark wasn’t there to hear. “Focus on my voice, can you do that?”

He wondered how much Donghyuck knew, about himself, about Mark, about them. Everything was falling apart, all that he had built around him to protect himself, it was all crumbling down right in front of him.

This is what Mark Lee looked like behind all the plastered protection around his heart. A weak and poor human who couldn’t compare to the other evils of the world. He wasn’t made for what he was given, not this.

“Like that, breathe in, you can do this Minnie. You just have to try and listen to me.”

Mark wondered how much time he could’ve afforded if he had just done something differently, if he had been smarter. What would’ve happened if he had just listened to Johnny? Just sat down an understood everything the others tried to get through his thick heart, every layer of muscle that protected his most sacred possession.

“Listen to me! Focus on one thing in front of you and breathe through your nose slowly.”

Maybe everything would’ve been nicer, maybe he could’ve lived a good life with his family and hold his brother in his arms and never let him go. Maybe he could hold Donghyuck in his arms instead, maybe the sun and the moon could still create an eclipse. Maybe it was all his fault, maybe all of it was his fault.

“Johnny,” Mark cried brokenly and clawed the floor for something to hold onto. He couldn’t see anything, just blotches of black and white dancing in his skull like fairies in a circle. The older demon was there for him however, and pulled him into his arms.

Here he cried and lost himself again, calling out for something Johnathan didn’t understand.

Johnathan only wondered what could have ever happened.

 

☾

 

_“Would you still be my friend even if I did something wrong?” Donghyuck asked Minhyung one morning when the sun was still due to rise._

_Minhyung turned his head from where it lay on top of his arms while they rested on the dewy grass beneath them and looked at Donghyuck. All he could smell was the fresh tang that came with every morning in the secluded forest where they were all staying at a cabin house._

_The setting moon broke through the trees and reflected in Donghyuck’s eyes, curious eyes that remained steadfast in their integrity to shatter to Minhyung to pieces._

_Every shard lay on the midnight grass, bleeding._

_“What do you define as ‘wrong’?” Minhyung responded, speaking softly into the warm air. He didn’t want to destroy this moment, it was all he had._

_Donghyuck huffed and lay back on the grass, staring up to the sky. It stayed quiet like that for a while, their breaths out of sync no matter how much they tried to create one. Every moment felt like another nail digging deep into Minhyung’s skin, weighing him down into the face of the earth where all the demons lived._

_Where all the demons lived._

_“I…Minhyung, sometimes I have these dreams, bad dreams,” Donghyuck finally spoke. Minhyung felt there was something lacking, or something present in the boy’s voice that he couldn’t place. It made him hold his breath. “I do bad things in them, really bad things. But I every time I wake up, I don’t feel bad about it.”_

_That caused him to frown and tapped Donghyuck’s arm to look away from above to his face. They stared at each other, there was fear written in the lines of their faces, but it wasn’t fear for the words that Donghyuck spoke. It was the anxiety that filled each of their stomachs with the worst feeling, a sticky devastation that couldn’t be let go. The worst didn’t look so bad right then._

_Minhyung spoke. “What’s ‘bad’, Donghyuck?” he questioned, drawing himself closer. Donghyuck let him. “You have to tell me what you mean.”_

_It was three in the morning, the sun wouldn’t come out for another three hours. Right there, behind the still cabin, beside the flowing river and the bloom of night flowers, Donghyuck confessed his growing obsessions, the worries he had for himself, the profound sense of control he held._

_“I wake up with blood on my hands, sweat on my sheets and a fucking smile on my face. I don’t know how to keep this from hyung.”_

_Taeil was asleep right now, cosied up in the warm bed that he shared with Donghyuck during their little trip with all their friends. Somehow, they’d even managed to bring Lisa with Jisoo after months of convincing. Now they all lay steady-breathed in their beds, Minhyung’s the only one completely cold and lacking._

_“I feel my mind fragmenting as every day passes and it’s like I’m seeing the world anew. It’s like I’ve become sensitive to all the evil that’s in the world. I can see it everywhere, in the way a stranger speaks, in the way my father stands, in the way Taeil lies. I’m breathing new air and all I want is more,” he whispered. It was like he was explaining the world for Minhyung, selling him a world better than this. And maybe he was._

_Movements were restless and only the air was there to undo the nails holding Minhyung down. This was a moment he could’ve only dreamed for, time alone with the person he would say he loved the most. But even dreams you have to wake up from and now was his time to realise that nothing ever worked out well in his life. Nothing._

_“I’m going to kill someone, Minnie. I can feel it in my veins, it’s like nothing else is important enough but this,” over those pretty eyelashes that glimmered in the seizing moonlight he looked to Minhyung and smiled. “Will you stop me?”_

_He lacked self-control when he laid in that divine garden with his eyes closed and tears falling onto his face. He lacked self-control when he sang a final tune of comfort in his father’s arms. He lacked self-control when he let Lucas take him home the first time. He lacked self-control when he cried watching his mother fall._

_He would always lack self-control when Donghyuck looks at him as if he hung the stars in the night sky._

_“Ok.”_

_He should’ve believed in the boy one last time._

⛧

 

_“What is your name?” the detective asked. Donghyuck could see the voice recorder playing beside him on the table._

_He closed his eyes and took a breath in._

_“My name is Donghyuck Lee, aka the Sunshine Killer,” he spoke calmly, without emotion. It made the officer by the door snicker._

_The detective ignored him and nodded, looking directly into his eyes. “How old are you and what is your date of birth?”_

_“I am thirty-one years of age. I was born on the third of June, 1969.”_

_“Where?”_

_“Right here in Seoul,” he responded._

_A few seconds passed where the recording just ran and Donghyuck couldn’t help but just stare down, holding onto his metal cuffs that bound him to the chair. He imagined what an electric chair would feel like instead, a firing squad._

_The detective finally looked up from his papers and sighed. The murderer wondered how hard of a job this would be, how mentally draining. He was sure the psych team coming to assess him felt the same way._

_“Mr Lee, do you know exactly how many people you killed?” he asked, bringing his hands together on the metal table._

_“Call me Donghyuck please, Mr Lee reminds me of my father.”_

_The detective nodded._

_“He was one of your first victims, am I right to assume that?” he asked. Now there a pen in his hand._

_Another breath in. A nod, “yes he was.”_

_“Back to the original question. Do you know your kill count, Donghyuck?”_

_“I didn’t keep track exactly, but I know it was somewhere around ninety to a hundred.”_

_“And who was your first victim?” the detective looked at him, eyes stripping. He was there to know every corner of the murderer’s mind._

_Donghyuck lifted his chin, refusing to show any tremble in his fingers. “Taeil Moon,” he spoke gently but firmly, letting the name slip from his tongue for the first time in six years. It burned something acidic into his broken heart._

_“What was his relation to you?” the detective asked. It made the murderer want to bend over and laugh the blood from his lungs._

_“He was my boyfriend at the time. We’d been together for four years at the time of his death,” he death, not Donghyuck’s first kill._

_His freedom._

_A cough came from the door and Donghyuck could only snarl at the disgusted guard. No one would ever try and shame his moon. He wouldn’t allow it, not until the sun died down._

_“What was the name of the last person you killed?”_

_“Lucia Black. She was a tourist visiting Korea during her gap year before university.”_

_“She was only nineteen?”_

_“Eighteen.”_

_Another cough, another breath, more rustling of the detective’s paper._

_He looked up to the murderer suddenly._

_“Who did you feel the worst killing, what did you feel?” he asked, sitting back. Donghyuck looked at him, shocked._

_Many names blurred in his mind, none quite stood out to him unless they were important figures in his life. Laughs passed through his mind, sweet and innocent smiles of his victims. How many times had he destroyed the world for families, lovers, friends._

_Would they ever understand why he did it though?_

_“I cried right after I killed my father. He was the one I hated the most, but the moment I let the knife dig into his chest, I immediately regretted it. I told my mother to run away the night before, I gave her money, I told her to live a good life away from them. The world became lonely the moment the life ran out of my father’s eyes.”_

_“We’ve taken your friends in for questioning and they all testified that they didn’t know your true identity until you were arrested. Did you keep it a secret for that long?”_

_“Yes, I would’ve gone crazy without them by my side. After Taeil, they were all I had left,” he said. Jisoo with her pretty smiles and smell of cupcakes. Seol and Hyunjin with their two children, laughing at everything he said._

_They were the family he never had. A family that up until now, took care of him when his sadness would hit hardest. Every night of Taeil’s passing, a family of four on one bed, looking after each other._

_“Was there ever anybody else?”_

_Donghyuck shook his head. There wasn’t. “No.”_

_With one last nod, the detective sat up and picked up the voice recorder. “Day three with the Sunshine Killer has come to a conclusion for the day.”_

_The detective was packing up, sorting all his files on the murderer and his recorder. He was ready to leave Donghyuck alone, shackled to his metal seat. He stood up to go but Donghyuck didn’t want him to._

_So he called out._

_“Sir, do you think I’m crazy? Do you truly think a sane man could do what I’ve done?” he looked to the detective, those big eyes that used to be adored by so many people. Now there were little creases at each corner, nature’s sign of time and stress._

_He was a tragedy that everyone wanted to look at. A sad story people would cry over. He was the perfect example of insanity on a sane man._

_The detective looked back at him from where he stood going to the door, and sighed. He was old, weathered and sick with every report that came out with more information about the Sunshine Killer case. But now he had the culprit right in front of him, right under a microscope where he could see the detail in the wings he used to fly. And this man only looked to be a boy damaged enough to contort into a different body, a body too mature for him. Without knowing better, he could easily assume the male’s innocence just by the way his lips lifted when heard something remotely nice, or the blood that let from his bruised lip after biting it so much._

_Donghyuck Lee was truly everything God hated in one man._

_“Donghyuck, I will say one thing to you,” the detective said and nodded for the guards to open the door. “You are a very complex character. I have never seen such control in a criminal before, nor have I seen them doubt themselves. Someone hurt you long ago and instead of letting yourself heal, you bled on people that didn’t cut you.”_

_And with that, he was left alone once more._

✹

 

In Hell, you always woke up to nightmares that left you without sanity for seconds. Those seconds were the scariest moments of Donghyuck’s day.

It was always the same dream, the same setup, the same event. It was always the same _people_ , ghosts that haunted him into the next life.

Sometimes it would be Jisoo that would scream, sometimes his father. Other times it was Taeil that shattered the glass with his voice, his dead eyes staring back into Donghyuck’s as he wept a dead man. The worst nights were the shadowed figure that strangled him instead, reaching over the broken glass to laugh in his face and watch the life drain out of his body.

“I rang at your door but no one was answering,” Jaemin greeted as he let himself into the house, a coffee cup in his hand when he planted himself next to Donghyuck on his bed.

He didn’t have the energy to do anything more than sit there with the boy and think blankly about the colour of his ceiling or the chandelier crystals. He couldn’t even think about the red eyes that appeared on the shadowed figure in his nightmares for the first time.

“I was talking to Renjun before and he reckons we should book a room at the Rubrum Mors for a night together. How does that sound?” Jaemin turned to him on the comforters and watched his sluggish movements.

Donghyuck nodded and simply closed his eyes, feeling the weight of someone’s presence immediately calm him down, the fear draining out of him leaving him simply tired.

Jaemin could read his face easily, with so many years of practice it had become routine that he was the one to detect when anything was amiss. It was one of his shining qualities.

“Did you have a bad nightmare?” he asked quietly, drawing closer to his friend until he had an arm thrown over Donghyuck’s waist.

It took all his energy to simply nod and turn his body to the side to look at the other soul. It felt like his whole body was asleep.

“What was different this time that made it so bad?”

“Someone was killing me and I didn’t know who, I could only see their red eyes,” Donghyuck responded. Red like the eyes of a demon.

Jaemin let out a hum and looked up to the sparkling lights illuminated from the dark window, focusing on the green fractals from the outside coming in. It was so pretty like this, so quiet and so peaceful that Jaemin could wave his hand in the air and feel the cool air turn warm on his skin.

Though they’d all been friends for years, there were still some secrets kept on their sides. These were secrets brought from the waking world that wouldn’t be spoken with words nor with peaceful actions. These were secrets they were too guilty to own up to.

Through his nose he breathed and let himself gain more energy before he slowly sat up and looked at Jaemin.

The boy was still looking outside, eyes unfocused as he continued to hum an unfamiliar tune. It filled the space between them, a soft melody that slowly lulled Donghyuck into a peaceful state of mind. It made his eyes heavy.

“Jaemin…can I ask you something?” he asked after a while, pulling the attention of the soul to look at him. Jaemin smiled and nodded.

Once upon a time, they were different people.

“Do you ever miss the people you had before you died? Do you ever ache for their presence, a friend, family?”

Jaemin thought about it for a while. Donghyuck could see how hard he was trying to hold his composure, to tame away the tight lines in his shoulders.

“I…I had friends who were my life. We did everything together, shopped together, ate together, sometimes we even slept in the same beds. We were a group of four and we never were apart,” Jaemin laughed, remembering something nice.

Donghyuck wondered what it was.

“I remember one summer right after we finished our last year, we decided to go to Sydney for a week and share one room between the four of us. It was the most fun I’d ever had in my life, I won’t ever forget it.”

“How about your family?” Donghyuck wondered. Jaemin eyes flashed right in front of him.

The change was so fast. It was just like lightning, fast and harmful.

“My parents loved me for a time, they loved me when it benefitted them and I fit into their standards of a son,” Jaemin spat, drawing back into himself. Donghyuck only realised then what a mistake he made.

“My family is the exact reason why I’m stuck here, in a place I don’t belong, they made me hate me myself to the point of self-harm and all I got was the blame. They turned away from me when I held the least blood in my body and laughed when I got beat up by kids at school. I came home thinking I would finally be safe and all my father did was grimace and walk away.”

Donghyuck’s eyes were wide. It wasn’t to come out like this. “Wait…you-” he was stopped by Jaemin’s grotesque grin. It didn’t look any bit natural.

“Did you know most of my friends stopped talking to me once they found out I was gay? My fucking best friends that I had every belief in suddenly dropped me and never talked to me again. It was the worst life any person could live,” he explained viciously, every spit of venom spraying out to burn anyone in his path.

“Jaemin-”

“So yes, I miss my friends with every fibre of my body because they were all I had but I don’t miss the life I lived, why do you think I escaped it?” he smiled, he looked tired and worn out but still somehow strong. There was meaning behind his words, a story left untouched with his words but engraved into Donghyuck’s mind.

Donghyuck sighed when he finished speaking and drew the comforter over both their bodies until they were both covered with its warmth. Jaemin was breathing irregularly and refused to look at his friend, eyes darting everywhere but him.

He took hold of his cold hand and squeezed it.

“Look at me, Jaemin,” he ordered. The soul refused. “I said look at _me_ ,” he said this time more forcefully, using the boy’s fear of his status to get him to look in his eyes. Donghyuck exhaled and smiled.

“We’re allowed to miss people who don’t deserve missing. You don’t have to feel guilty about it, we can’t control who we love and who we don’t.”

He breathed in and spoke from the deepest corners of his heart, the places that still had cobwebs. He didn’t use this side of him, the side that used to be sensitive and thoughtful, but maybe reliving what he wished he could was only possible by rebuilding himself into what he was.

Into what was loved.

“I never like to think about him much, but I lied when I said I didn’t have someone I loved. I had multiple, in fact,” he breathed, a watery smile on his face. He had all of Jaemin’s attention now.

“I had four best friends, one of them who was my dearest love. They looked after me and I looked after them. Like your friends, they were the best thing that could ever happen to me after being abused by my father for so many years. They taught me things my parents never did and showed me how to love myself.”

“I never told you about Taeil but I loved more him than I loved myself. If society had treated us right, I would’ve married him and lived a good life alive right now. But God is vicious and He didn’t want such a thing for me, for you either.”

Jaemin smiled and patted his hand to let go, drawing back. He lied back down and whistled again.

“That must’ve been nice, having someone love you.”

The wave of sadness didn’t hit him right away, but it came gradually every time Jaemin glanced back to him with those pretty and shiny eyes of his. It made him think back to all the times Taeil did it, how he would laugh whenever Donghyuck said anything remotely funny just because that was the way he was. The intelligence that he missed so much the moment he would always correct something someone else would say, just like he did with his friends all the time.

Donghyuck shook his head and looked down. “It isn’t nice. Jaemin, I killed him,” he confessed. He wouldn’t look at his friend’s face, not yet.

Slowly he was coming to regret every decision he made in the past. It started small, like regretting the way he treated his mother or talked to the kids in primary school. Every new rising night, there always something he wished he did something different, said something nicer. Things that used to make him feel full, complete, weren’t enough for him.

Now he felt there was something missing, a piece to the puzzle he didn’t even know was gone.

“You what?” Jaemin broke the silence when he looked over to Donghyuck, shocked. That was all it was, nothing more, nothing hidden, there was just surprise. Donghyuck didn’t know what was worse.

“He was the first person I killed, he was the start of it all. All those murders you heard on the TV, they were all began with him,” he said with his head low. All of a sudden it hurt. “I was angry when I did it, I was angry at _myself_. I thought, ‘how could I let this happen?’ and it made me lose any power I had within myself.”

Jaemin just nodded and listened. It was all he could he do, all he _would_ do.

“I wanted that power back, I needed it to survive. It was all that was holding me together. So when I lost it, I was on the verge of crazy. I didn’t feel any guilt killing him, just pure sadness.”

“So you miss him?” Jaemin asked.

Donghyuck thought about all the times he used wake up after nightmares with tears down his face, reaching out to the other side of the bed expecting some sort of comfort, someone warm and anchoring. But it was never there and each time he would fall further into his tears. He remembered all the times his friends tried to comfort him after Taeil’s death, spending nights over at his house to fill up that space that his boyfriend left behind. Those nights he didn’t have nightmares.

Sometimes still, in Hell, he would wake up looking to the other side of the cold bed, maybe out of habit, maybe out of that slow guilt that started to rack up his brain.

“Yeah, I do. And now I regret everything.”

 

 

⛧

 

_“Shh, don’t cry,” Johnathan smoothed his hand down Mark’s back as the boy curled further into himself, tears track shining under the dim lights in his apartment. “Breathe a little.”_

_Everything choked him the more he tried to relax, new thoughts coming in with the tide no matter how much he tried to stop them. The ache in his head couldn’t compare to the one hitting harshly at his chest._

_“I-It’s not fair,” Mark choked out, holding onto the bedsheets for support. “Why m-me? Why does it always have to be me?”_

_Johnathan could feel himself break at the sight of the boy so bent that he looked like the child he used to look after when he was human. A life simpler than this one._

_“Everything happens for a reason, you, me, the things that happened to the others, they all happened for a reason. You may not see it now, but in the future you will,” Johnny whispered into his damp hair, kissing Mark’s crown lightly before pulling back. He could see the lines of fatigue wearing him down._

_“Do you think this God’s punishment for turning against Him? That I w-went against everything I believed in?” Mark asked weakly. Those words hurt more than Johnny could have ever realised._

_Mark always believed in his faith, even in death. The scar burning at his throat was evidence of that. And if he didn’t anymore, Johnny wouldn’t know what to do._

_Johnathan shook his head immediately and hugged the demon on the bed from behind, covering his feverish body with his arms to protect him from the cold._

_“You are perfect Minnie, there is nothing anyone or anything could hate about you. Don’t doubt your faith like that,” he whispered into his shoulder. The boy cried harder._

_“Then why? Why do I have to leave them?” he muffled into the blankets, wet and broken. “Why do I have to leave him?”_

_That was the question, the discussion Taeyong, Jaehyun and Johnathan have been having for centuries. Why was Hell so cruel?_

_“Because it’s your job, Mark. You knew what you were getting into the moment you stepped into the assignment. We’ve all had to make our share of sacrifices during this life, it’s time to make yours.”_

_Slowly but weakly, Mark began to turn in his arms so they were both facing each other. His eyes were all puffy from crying and his lips were bitten red. His fangs shone red with his own blood._

_“Do you think he ever loved me? Do you think it will ever be possible for me to love someone again?” he asked Johnathan. His words were soft, almost mute, but they were there and he could understand them._

_Johnny laughed humourlessly, tightening his hold around the younger boy. “You never told me enough about him to know his character, but I’m sure there is something. Even the Devil himself isn’t that cruel,” he whispered. His hand came to smooth down Mark’s dampened fringe. “As for you loving again, I’m sure they’ll be someone else. The future isn’t lonely, trust me. Maybe you and Lucas can even reunite.”_

_“You really think I’ll be happy one day?”_

_Johnathan nodded. “I’m completely sure,” he said._

_Mark took a deep breath in and stopped his tears, sniffling a little when he pulled away. Everything about him looked completely broken, the permanent grimace that stretched his lips, the clumped up eyelashes dragged down with tears, his broken heart. Johnathan should’ve realised earlier the signs._

_“Why do they have to forget, Johnny? Why can’t they just remember us, have a memory?” he questioned, asking for answers even Johnathan didn’t have._

_But he did have a story._

_“Will you let me tell you a tale instead?” the boy nodded. Johnathan’s tales always made him feel better._

_“Once upon a time, there was this boy. In a valley where the flowers grew and bloomed the brightest, a village celebrated the birth of a new son to the chief of the people. Horns flared in the air and dried petals were thrown onto the walk paths. Traditional tunics were worn and everyone cheered for the new generation of their sacred home.”_

_“He was their first and only son though they had an older daughter who watched every step he took. He grew up to be so very handsome and beautiful that even girls envied his beauty. Everyone was in love, they made him new flower crowns every day to wear because he was the village’s lucky charm. When they went in battle, he was the one that brought home all the soldiers to their wives.”_

_“He was only seventeen when people started asking questions. Innocent whispers on the streets turned into snide comments behind backs and soon it reached to the chief’s manor where he was furious. He was furious because how could people ever wonder such things of his son? He was appalled by the behaviour of the people when it came down to respecting the prince’s simple wish to stay silent, to simply be the lucky charm they all looked up to him for.”_

_“The flower crowns still came every day from innocent young girls who giggled each time they passed on their creation to the beautiful male. Many still adored him for his kindness and humility, the utter purity only one could ever possess.”_

_“But the chief was getting old, too old to sit on his horse and order his soldiers to battle. He needed his son to succeed after him and look after the village when he was too frail to do so himself. His sister had already been married off years before to a man she didn’t love, trapped in a marriage of politics just to satisfy her family. It was all on the son of the flowers, the lucky prince. Suddenly, all those rumours from years ago came back, and this time it was with evidence.”_

_“People used to comment about all his peers who were already engaged at childhood, so many of them who had already become men and claimed what was rightfully theirs. The chief’s son was never interested in that, never looked to another body and admired its shape no matter the sex. He always just turned his head when it came to it.”_

_“At first, people thought it was the sex, that maybe he’d rather look at boys instead. But then when he didn’t look at both, people talked and talked until their mouths could shut no more.”_

_“The flower prince needed an heir, it was his only duty as a male in the line of authority in the village. All he needed was one thing that was his and people would’ve stopped talking. His father got angry, shouted at him when he asked why there was no one yet, asked if the words whispered by the fire were true. His mother wouldn’t even look at him.”_

_“He was devastated. He never thought about sex in such a way that would be seen as a requirement, never thought of it as an enjoyment. People told him that he was sick, that there was something wrong in his mind, in his heart. The crowns stopped coming but they still appeared on his head, hours of pruning roses and bleeding from his fingers to create his own lucky charm. When he walked through the streets, people turned away in shame, clucking their tongues in disgust. All of a sudden he was an abomination.”_

_“War came again and this time, no one looked to him as their lucky charm. They went straight into battle leaving the boy with crown of thorns bleeding on his throne. They were losing, a messenger came back to report the death of his father the next month when his family were being served supper. He didn’t cry like his mother did, only stood up from his seat at the end and walked away.”_

_“He had a best friend, she was a foreigner that caught everyone’s eye because of her different skin colour and beauty. She was there when he walked into his room, knew what he needed the moment she hugged him. She knew everything about him, every mole on his body, every secret kept sealed behind those lips. They were truly a pair.”_

_“She offered him something, an offer so tempting it tore him apart. He was no longer happy in his home, put in charge if something he never wanted. Only his family loved him anymore, his best friend. He had no place with them, he knew. So he took it.”_

_“The next day, all the soldiers came back from the battle victorious. People mourned for the loss of the flower prince yet no body remembered the foreign princess. No one ever remembers the snake beside the bed of treasure. They re-elected a chief and the village was once again happy. But the boy was not forgotten.”_

_“They mocked him, shamed him for who he was. They turned him into something so different from what he was, like what they did to you, did to me. What he didn’t desire then, he craved now, fed off it.”_

_Mark looked to him wondrously, tears slowly dried to glimmer in his eyes. There were questions there, ones of origin and ones of sadness. An infamous tale could only be told once._

_“He’s happy now, he’s lived a long life adjusting to what was given to him. He doesn’t even remember a life where he wasn’t like that but for a long time he was sad, he thought exactly like you. He didn’t understand why any of it would happen to him, because why should it? He was perfect, pretty, poise, everything anyone could want out of a flower prince like him. He did nothing wrong but love less people than expected. You know, he used to cry to sleep every night because all he wanted was to go back, back to his mother, his sister. He stopped talking to his friend and he blocked out everyone even when he had duties.”_

_“He never trained to be a Reaper because he promised himself to never let another person ever go through what he did. Even with the large place in his heart that he held all his love for his friend, he never talked to her again, moved to a different city to be away from her. He started a new life with new people but he longed for the person he used to be, the people he used to have.”_

_“Mark, you’ll miss many people when you finish your assignment, you’ll leave many people behind who won’t even remember who you are. I was so upset when your brother died and we had to leave your parents. They used to treat me like their own son even when I thought I didn’t deserve it, William treated me like his twin. You will never understand how much I still regret taking you away from your family, stealing you away. But now I have you and I’m selfish.”_

_“But you’ll move on just like the son of the chief did, time heals everything even when you don’t want it to. You’ll feel alone in a world too big and you won’t know what to do but others will, I’ve looked after you your whole life. Lucas always tells me that he’s going to move into your apartment with you one day, that he won’t even tell you and you’ll just find him there,” Johnathan told him, holding onto his hands firmly. They were clammy and slippery but he didn’t care, he needed Mark to understand._

_The boy snorted and looked away, sniffling. His whole body was shaking but his hands were his anchors that remained still in a water of harsh waves. Johnny only smiled at him and squeezed his hands._

_“It’s not the end of the world, trust me when I say it’s not. As a matter of fact, the world doesn’t actually revolve around this boy much to your popular belief.”_

_Mark opposed. “But he’s the sun!” he protested. Johnny laughed._

_“You_ think _he’s your sun, he’s not the actual one.”_

_And so it went like that for the rest of the night, Johnathan telling Mark stories to calm him down, small little laughs that erupted along the way. Tomorrow he would remember the problem again and it would start all over, but tomorrow is tomorrow and today is all that matters._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget to leave a kudos and comment if you liked this, writers really appreciate it! <333


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoy this chapter, i introduce a minor oc character in this chapter, dw she's nothing special.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: slight mention of prositution and murder

 

There was a period in time where Hell had warmed over. It was only a short while, but in that time all the cold winds from the south stopped and instead the skin of each soul became sticky with humidity. It was celebrated amongst the souls who sought the same warmth that they held in the mortal world but it was feared by the demons who flourished in the cold.

Demons had a warmer body temperature, hence the temperature drop in Hell. It was made to accommodate for the inhabitants of Hell with clarity to ensure that it was their home not the souls’. So when the souls of Hell woke up to a warm bedroom and the demons arose to burning skin, leathery to the touch, it was pandemonium.

Nobody truly knew the reason to why it happened, even if it was for a short while, it was like torture that the souls enjoyed to watch be set upon the demons. It was an unspeakable moment in time, preserved in everyone’s minds as they watched the demons bleed veins of black and shed tears of dust. Some souls even laughed at the less fortunate, mocking tales spread through the warm air in momentary happiness of their freedom.

Time never went so slowly, so fast.

Demons went to their leaders for help but came back with no answers in their hands. Souls went to work with smiles on their faces, the streets in short sleeve tops. The ones who adored summer in the real world cried true tears of longing when the air they breathed was more than just a spike to the system. For a time it smelt like home.

It passed eventually, slowly Hell froze over again and the demons started to cool down. The souls were unsatisfied with the change in events however and complained to the Devil himself, claiming that Hell was a place made to home souls and that demons were only the workers in a factory.

Donghyuck never got to personally experience the heat himself, it was in an age before him. He’d only heard stories about the eventful few moments the world of Hell were able to experience. The souls around him told stories of great adventure where the pools of Eden were filled to the brim with on goers and music played ranging all decades of stardom. They talked about the Queen played by the pool bars and the Frank Sinatra laying down on the lounge chairs. The classical sways of Mozart and the booming beats of electronic music. They tell a tale of a time too great for Donghyuck to experience, a time he could only listen about in envy.

He missed the warmth, hadn’t really felt it for too long. And for eternity he wouldn’t get that chance, forever cold when he should be radiating. Maybe sometimes the heating in his home made him too sticky at times but warmth was the feeling rather, not the temperature of his useless blood.

Tonight, the theatre nearby his house was playing a showcase of the ultimate classic, The Nutcracker. It was his favourite show to go and see growing up, overly fond of the way the ballerinas twirled in the air and the happy ending she got by the end of the performance. The odds were never in her favour but somehow she was given what Donghyuck could only ever wish of having.

The ballerinas smiled wickedly tonight, uncanny to the way they did for him as a child, and they danced with the lightest feet. He couldn’t help the smile that grew to his face as the show progressed on and he got to see the girl fall and rise again. It was astonishing to see.

By the time the performance ended, the red lights of the main city towers glowed dimly signalling a fall to the current workday. In the mortal world, it would be time for sleep, a chance to smile as you went home.

“Sir, you left this behind,” someone said to him as he turned to leave, tapping him on the shoulder to give over his jacket. He smiled at them and took it gratefully.

“Oh, thank you so much, it’s getting so cold outside I’d freeze to death without it,” bowing to them he straightened up and looked at them, a kind soul offering assistance in a place opposite of worship.

It was a female, she looked around the same age as him. She was beautiful, such extraordinary beauty misplaced with the people around her. Her eyes illuminated the strongest hue of grey, so sugary sweet that they were almost dripping in it.

When she smiled, every white pearl of teeth was on display and captured Donghyuck in a trance. It was hypnotising to even stand beside her and reflect her actions back. Her eyelashes fell with one single sweep and lifted back up again to look at him.

“I’m Clementine, by the way,” she said, holding out her hand. Donghyuck just stared at it for a moment before taking in his.

He looked up and smiled. “Donghyuck, pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

Clementine smiled mischievously and took her hand back, fingerprint marks where Donghyuck gripped too hard. Her hands were too delicate, too fragile. He wondered from what time she came from.

“Would you like to join me for a round of drinks?” he put the question out into the cold air, his breath held.

In all the time he’s been dead and alive, Donghyuck had learnt never to rely on another soul. Humans are so unpredictable that a plan could never be set upon such fragile foundations.

Sometimes, he just had to pray and hope for it to work his way.

Clementine smiled and gathered her bag. “I would love that,” she responded. Her smile was contagious. “I know a wonderful bar near my house, it reminds me a lot of home. We could go there?”

“Wonderful, lead the way,” Donghyuck nodded and walked after her, ignoring the stares he received from other souls trailing after his feet.

In the cold air, Donghyuck followed this stranger all the way to the other side of the city, his legs dragging behind her as they passed streets, souls, demons, lights, drunkards. All she did was throw her head over her shoulder and smile wonderfully, walking away.

It was like a game of temptation.

Donghyuck didn’t know how long it took to stand in front of the bar, but as their steps slowed down and the air became thinner, he realised they had finally arrived. Clementine was grinning from her position beside him.

“Shall we go in?” she wondered, holding out the door for him. Donghyuck didn’t even get to consider it before he was swallowed whole into the realm of shadow and candle light.

The place was beautiful, extravagant and universal. Chandeliers lined the tall ceiling, all lit with multitudes of dripping candles that illuminated the top of each souls’ head. The interiors of the bar were very Victorian, dark shades of paint and mahogany wood decorating the walls and very foundations of the bar.

It was beautiful just like the raven-haired girl in front of him.

“When did you die, Clementine?” he asked, setting down his jacket at the table they were seated at, thanking the waiter quietly.

She looked at him with the question and tipped her head forward, letting the black of her hair shine loose against the candles on their table. She was definitely a sight.

“During the reign of Queen Victoria in England. Surely you recognised the accent,” she tutted and turned away, laughing lightly. It gave Donghyuck the opportunity to properly analyse each and every detail about her.

Unlike Mark’s, her eyelashes were light and short, a stark contrast to her grey eyes. Her grey eyes were also of interest to him, growing up in a place where the most prominent colour was brown, she was completely out of the ordinary.

Clementine glowed under all the lights, the darkness wrapped around her like a dress for the evening. It welcomed her and turned her into a princess of the night, her long dark hair drawn around her in a straight curtain. She looked like the very personification of all the beauty that Hell held in its palms.

“What would you like to have, did you look at the menu?” she asked, turning her head over the menu she was holding. He thanked her and let it be passed onto him.

The waiter came and asked for their orders. Donghyuck simply went along with whatever Clementine ordered and asked to double it. The waiter left with a simple nod.

All her attention was back to him and then she smiled. The flickering light made her teeth shine into sharp shark teeth and it shocked him when her eyes looked so innocent in comparison.

“So what brought you down here to the very pits of Hell?” Clementine questioned him. She let her head sit on top of her closed fists and watched Donghyuck wither with the question.

“I killed a lot of people. I was even on television. What about you, what did you do?”

It was like looking at the Cheshire Cat. “I was a prostitute in London. Sickness caught me when I died and instead of going up to heaven as I was promised, I was brought down here,” she said bitterly, smile still intact.

Donghyuck would’ve killed people like her when he had been alive. Such immoral qualities about a person would’ve already been eliminated had he known her in the living world.

“Oh really? What an interesting career path,” he responded, trying his hardest to keep a straight face.

Clementine threw her head back and laughed, every noise coming from her throat. Had there been more bodies in the bar, souls would have turned their heads to look at her.

Unfortunately, it did drag someone’s attention.

“Well, it was quite an exp-”

“Excuse me, can I please talk to Donghyuck for a second?” someone behind the murderer’s back said, freezing every cell in Donghyuck’s undead body. Suddenly, the hair was too cold and the room was too quiet.

Clementine curiously gazed at the intruder and then to her ‘date’, lips drawn over teeth unpleasantly. Then she pulled a waxy grin. “Sure.”

Mark dragged Donghyuck by his upper arm and he couldn’t help but realise that this was their first touch and it was unwilling. The touch of a demon was meant to burn.

The demon dragged them through the bar and towards the back where the number of candles diminished. Somehow, it was getting warmer the further they got to his table. Mark’s body felt warm too, almost too warm.

They stopped when they hit a dead end and there was only one door to go through. Suddenly, it was all too dark to see and only the deathly grip on his arm was there to guide him through.

It made him think back to one of the last nights he had with Taeil when he guided him to the nearest beach in the dead of the night just to show Donghyuck the stars. Only his care guided him through.

“What are you doing?” he let out after Mark started to open the shabby door only to enter into more darkness. Donghyuck could feel the hold on his arm start to loosen.

The demon growled deep in his throat and pulled him in, closing the door with a sharp thud that let out dust all over the room. Donghyuck’s eyes couldn’t focus anywhere.

It was quiet. He could hear both their breaths become sharper under the musty heat, turning in tune. Then he could only hear one, theirs.

A lamp turned on to the side of Donghyuck and it lit the side of both their faces. It was still dark, but like this, he could see the deep bruises that lined Mark’s lips. When he looked up, Donghyuck could almost see the intensity of the black in in his eyes.

“Who am I?”

Donghyuck was taken aback. “What?”

Mark looked at him again, this time a scowl turning sides of his mouth. The way he looked at the soul was not pleasant in the least.

“I said, do you know who I am?” he asked again, his hot breaths chasing down the front of Donghyuck’s open shirt. It made him shiver.

“Yeah, you’re a demon that broke up with his boyfriend in a bar. That was the first time I saw you and then the second time at the club. I asked about you with your demon friends and they told me some stuff but that’s all I know,” Donghyuck responded. It was upsetting to know that he was telling the truth.

Every time before sleeping, Donghyuck had thought about being able to meet Mark again, to try and talk. All those times, he would always remind himself that these were all fictitious tales made to satisfy a twisted desire. He would question what it was about Mark that intrigues him so, what made him stand out in the eyes of a murderer.

Now he had him right in front of him, and he didn’t know what he _could_ do. Not when Mark’s eyes were increasingly turning red right in front of him.

“What did they tell you?” he demanded. Donghyuck obeyed so easily.

“About your ‘mortal’. You fell in love with someone who wasn’t yours, right?” Donghyuck said, tilting his head to the side curiously, simply watching the demon’s face. “And the heaven’s paid you back for it.”

Mark fell back. His mouth dropped as he tried to say something, anything. Too many things were flashing over his face for Donghyuck to decipher.

“I think the heavens have hated me my whole fucking life. It isn’t anything new.”

Donghyuck snorted and looked at the lamp. “Well, we happen to share that as well,” he retorted. He was surprised when the demon came closer again and laughed lightly, filling the dark space with a brief flash of life before it was extinguished.

“Did Johnny tell the name of the boy or the name of my assignment?” Mark then asked, this time a little softer, with a little more fear. Donghyuck shook his head and fiddled with his fingers. He wondered what Mark was so scared about.

“No, he said you never would tell him the name. And in terms of boy’s boyfriend, all he mentioned was ‘Moony’,” Donghyuck mentioned, “which is interesting because I used to call my boyfriend that all the time.”

Again, something foreign passed over Mark before he evened it out and gave an inkling of a smile to Donghyuck. The soul could easily tell how thin it wore over his lips.

“Really?”

“Yeah, which is even weirder since Johnathan told me how your mortal killed your assignment and that’s how you completed the transition. It’s weird because I killed my boyfriend too,” he said so simply. So, so simply.

Mark nodded as if it was common knowledge.

“Why did you do it?”

Donghyuck never expected the demon to ask him that. He never expected himself to answer it so easily. “Because he took away my power when I needed it the most and I wanted it back. He lied too many times and it made me feel used. I didn’t want to feel used anymore.”

“Did you love him?” it sounded like it was too hard for Mark to sound out in his mouth, tumbling out all distorted and broken. Donghyuck wondered why Mark was asking all these questions.

Not that he was complaining.

“I did, I still do. I was in a very bad place before I met him and my friends,” he smiled, remembering them in his mind. “They all taught me so many things about myself that without them, I don’t know if I would’ve survived that long.”

Another step Mark took between them. This close, Donghyuck could imagine his own body melding in with his, hands intertwined. He could see his own reflection in the demon’s eyes.

“How many friends did you have?” Mark asked.

“Four including my boyfriend.”

“Only four?”

Taeil, Jisoo, Seol, Hyunjin.

“Only four. I didn’t need more than that, they were already my world.”

When Mark grimaced and looked away, Donghyuck felt his own heart drop with such heavy disappointment that he almost fell to the floor. He would’ve given anything for Mark to turn his head back to him, to say something more. He didn’t know what he did wrong. All he wanted was acknowledgment of his friends.

“I think we should head back now, your ‘date’ is probably waiting for you,” Mark finally said after a whole moment of silence where only the lamp crackled and flickered.

Donghyuck had to protest.

“She’s not my ‘date’, we just met each other right before. She gave me my jacket and I thought we could go out.”

“That sounds like a date to me,” Mark responded, rolling his eyes away.

Before Donghyuck could oppose again however, the demon decided it was enough and grabbed him again but this this time by the wrist. He blew out the lamp and opened the door for them to go out.

Unlike last time, Mark literally dragged him with a force he didn’t know he could hold all the way back to the dim light. He could feel the indents of his fingertips already lining his skin.

He let Donghyuck go the moment they could see other souls and demons sitting at their respective tables and walked in front of him to where Clementine was sitting patiently.

“Sorry that took so long, he’s all yours now,” Mark apologised and smiled. “Enjoy your date.”

Clementine looked at him questionably and nodded. “Thanks, demon. You have a good day too.”

Donghyuck didn’t say anything as Mark passed him in a flourish and made for the door, past where the soul noticed to be the rest of his friends laughing at something. They didn’t even notice his departure.

The drinks were already on the table when he sat down and looked to Clementine, an apology on the tip of his tongue. Hers along with his were both untouched, her patient fingers on the sides of her chair.

“Who was he?” she asked him right before he could speak and threw up a brow. It felt like he was under a microscope.

“Just someone I know,” he smiled at her and reached for his drink, staring blandly at the swirling orange liquid.

“Right.”

Donghyuck didn’t let himself stop for a moment and think about why Mark took him aside.

 

-

 

_“Where are you taking me?” Donghyuck called out, trying to tear away the hands that were covering his eyes. Someone was laughing. “I’m gonna fall and you’re not going to catch me!”_

_“I’ll always catch you.”_

_Under his feet, the ground started to become uneven and crunch with every footstep. It made the boy call out ferociously and swing his arms about._

_An arm came then to settle around his waist, hot to the touch against his cool skin where his shirt had drawn up on its own. It made Donghyuck shiver._

_“What can you hear?” they whispered in his ear, breath blowing over a few strands of his hair._

_Donghyuck tried to listen and ignore the body pressed up behind him, let his breath even when he inhaled deeply._

_It smelled of salt._

_“Are we at the beach?” he questioned, letting the silence answer his guess. Then the hand covering his eyes came down and he could finally see it all._

_The moon glimmered and shone down onto the soft waves down below, illuminating the water like a thousand pearls shone underneath. There was no one else on the beach but them, the two of them standing on the warm stones._

_“This is beautiful,” he let out, sighing perfectly to look back at the city then to the water again._

_“Isn’t it?”_

_Donghyuck turned backed to see them staring adoringly at him, eyes glittering like the sea. It made the younger male blush and hide under his fringe._

_“Minnie, come with me to the edge,” he grabbed Minhyung’s hand and pulled him closer to the shore, grip held tight on their clammy hands._

_The water was cold when he dipped his toes in, crashing into the sand as they came closer with their feet bare. It made them both squeal._

_“I can’t believe you woke me up in the middle of the night just to bring me out here,” Donghyuck shook his head happily and splashed the water with both feet at Minhyung. It made him laugh and reciprocate._

_They played like that for the next half hour, laughs falling silent to the rest of the city as they wrestled each other to the water. It was cold and then it was warm, bodies clashing each other in the water as they tried to drag the other to the bottom of the sand._

_“Did you at least bring towels when you decided to kidnap me from my bed?” Donghyuck laughed when they fell back on the sand and looked up at the clear night sky. It felt like that night next to the holiday cabin, bodies so close they could feel each other’s heat._

_Minhyung laughed and turned his body to the side to face Donghyuck. “I actually did, in the back of the car if you want me to get it,” he said. Donghyuck shook his head simply sat up to remove his soaking shirt. He motioned for Minhyung to do the same._

_The boy came to cuddle up beside him and let his cold skin cool his warm one. Minhyung shivered at the contact and breathed up to the sky._

_“Why is your skin so warm? We were just in cold water, it’s impossible to be so hot,” Donghyuck looked at him concerned. Minhyung smiled and patted his waist._

_“It’s fine, I’ve always had a warm body temperature. Just hug me and keep me cool.”_

_And so that is what Donghyuck did. He laughed at the boy but obeyed him by turning to Minhyung and draping his arms over his waist. This close, they were breathing the same air, Minhyung’s cinnamon breath and Donghyuck’s mint._

_They smiled._

_“Would you let me kiss you?” Minhyung whispered, voice so low. Whispering to hide all his weaknesses._

_Donghyuck breathed in sharply and looked away, smile dropping off his face. He didn’t pull away, only tightened his hold around him. There were too many things swirling inside his stomach, nerves and bile mixed together. Butterflies that kept smashing into the walls._

_“You know I can’t do that, no matter how much I want to,” he said apologetically, lowering his head rest in the crook of Minhyung’s neck. The sand tickled his cheek when he breathed in._

_“But why not, your boyfriend’s been doing the same thing with some random chick. Why can’t you do it with me?” Mark asked, almost begging. Donghyuck could feel his heart stammering against his own._

_No matter how much his desire to be with Minhyung controlled his mind and body, his moral to stay to true and dear to his beloved was stronger than any other force. No matter how much Taeil screwed up, he would be waiting for him to come with open arms and a light smile on his face._

_He couldn’t hate something with his entire soul and then turn his back to do the same thing. He had to prove to himself that he was better than that._

_“Because if I go do the same thing that he’s doing, aren’t I the same? Shouldn’t I be better than that?” he smiled sadly and thought to himself all the times in the past year where Minhyung had slowly and progressively become closer with him._

_Minhyung thought about it for a while and just exhaled into Donghyuck’s hair, smoothing the damp strands with his hand._

_“What if we ran away, you and me? The two us, we just left,” Mark suggested suddenly, shocking Donghyuck into silence._

_“What are you suggesting?”_

_“We leave, I need to show you something and you can come with me. We can be together forever.”_

_Forever was a big word, Donghyuck has come to slowly realise. He used to think he and Taeil would be forever, used to dream about it every day. Now forever doesn’t look so nice anymore._

_“Why forever?” he asked, because he loved Minhyung, he did. He wasn’t necessarily sure what his love for the boy was, but he knew it was there and it came in abundance. Forever was a long time._

_Minhyung pulled Donghyuck away from his neck and smiled, one so delicate that it could shatter the sky above. It made Donghyuck’s heart yearn for more._

_“Because, you and I would be able to work forever. I can show the simple solution to that. You can even be with Taeil too,” Mark told him. Donghyuck shook his head._

_“He promised me forever too and look where it got me,” he laughed sadly when he looked around them to see the desolated beach. “I would love to spend my forever with the both of you but I wouldn’t know what it would look like.”_

_Minhyung thought about it, his hands slowly rounding up and down Donghyuck’s back. Every fingertip set off a bundle of nerves along his spine and it made it harder to breathe._

_“What if I showed you?”_

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget to comment and leave a kudos if you like this chapter, tell me what you think!
> 
> agas-safa xxxxx


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is a little shorter but a little more juicy, hope you enjoy!

 

“Why are we here again?” Mark asked Jaehyun the moment they stepped into the bowling alley to be greeted with the rest of their friends. All of them were waving him over with great smiles, even the gloomier ones like Doyoung and Taeil.

“Because it’s your transition anniversary, why do you always forget?” Jaehyun shook his head lightly and pushed the younger demon closer to where their friends were with a hand on his shoulder.

The first thing that Mark noticed the moment he got close enough was that Lucas sat beside Taeyong on the lounging seats with giggles coming out of his mouth. He wasn’t paying any attention to Mark at all.

The second thing he noticed was the lack of souls in the bowling alley alongside them, it just seemed to be a few other groups of demons vacating the end lanes. There was quiet music playing in the background, Mark’s favourite artist _Eagles_ going over on repeat.

“Happy birthday to our baby boy!” Johnny shouted and jumped up to coddle him with hugs and pinches that bruised all over his body. It made Mark squirm and squeal at the same time from embarrassment.

Taeyong came up next and looked at him with such motherly love in his eyes that he almost fell apart crying in the demon’s arms. Times like this made him miss him mother dearly.

“We all love you,” Taeyong whispered gently into his ear, running his hands over Mark’s back in a comforting manner.

When he pulled back, Mark could feel Lucas’ eyes on him and looked his way. He held no expression when he looked to the other hellboy.

Lucas looked at him sadly, kind in a way that was apologetic but not enough. Mark wouldn’t argue to why he was here since they had been best friends for a very long time before dating each other.

Something that Mark surprisingly didn’t miss.

“Johnny, where’s your fallen angel tonight?” Mark asked the demon standing beside him, turning his head up. Everyone laughed at Johnny’s misfortune.

“Negotiating with the other angels for his return,” he said simply. Mark nodded as if he was interested.

Someone started the game while they were talking and the sound of the balls running through the machine made Mark look up in glee. All his friends were getting ready to sit down and watch him take the first turn.

“We believe in you!” Doyoung shouted out when he got his ball and walked to the lane, punching his fists up in the air in encouragement. The hellboy smiled to him gratefully before focusing back onto the game.

_Strike._

His friends cheered and clapped him on the back when he moved to sit down next to Taeil, already egging on Jaehyun who was next.

“How have you been lately? I’ve been too busy with training to check up on you,” Taeil wondered when he turned to Mark, an open expression on his face. It was always easy to talk to him, like he was another older figure to look up to.

Lately, everything has been too messed up in Mark’s mind to be able to talk about it with anyone else. After his panic attack in his apartment, he had decided to distance himself quite a bit from the others to clear his mind.

Things only got worse when he went and talked to Donghyuck.

It had been so long since he had properly talked to the boy and then all of sudden, his impulsiveness took him to a place that was instantly regretted the moment the light fell away. It was too much, too fast. It was a chapter of himself that he’d accepted a long time ago was closed and now it was trying to reopen itself with only blank pages.

He didn’t know which was worse, Donghyuck remembering everything or him remembering nothing at all. Not even Mark.

“I talked to Donghyuck,” he revealed cautiously, watching Taeil’s reaction for any discomfort.

Taeil’s death was a very sensitive topic even now with many years passed. It traumatised him for a long time and only recently had he started showing the old himself again. He just never believed that it would be the person he trusted the most to hurt him.

His face showed surprise and grief when he looked at Mark, mouth open in wonder. It was like he couldn’t speak, words at the tip of his tongue but not with enough force to actually say them.

“You already know that they located him here in Eden, you were there when they decided it. I met him recently.”

Taeil’s eyes flashed. “You talked to him?” he asked gently. Mark nodded and looked around to make sure no one was listening.

“He talks about you, you know. I think he still loves you a lot,” he confessed, tone soft as he spoke with Taeil.

Next it was Taeyong’s turn and Doyoung cheered extra loud for him, drowning out Mark’s voice in turn. Jaehyun came to sit beside him.

“Why?” Taeil asked.

“He was at the bar when I confronted Lucas about cheating on me. I guess he saw me and took interest.”

It was quite dark in the alley, artificial purple and blue lights setting the environment with confetti covering the walls and floor. The music was still playing low in the background but with his hearing, Mark could clearly hear the melody of ‘One of These Nights’ in his ears.

Jisoo used to play the song all the time when they were in university, filling their study sessions with music in the back. Mark could still remember the amount of complaints Donghyuck used to make he would try and study with the music, claiming that it was ‘frying’ his brain.

Little things that Taeil never knew about his own friends.

“He knew you from that?” Taeil raised a brow. “Really?”

“I guess he remembers cheaters more than you would care to admit,” Mark bit back, unaware of his own words in the moment. It was so loud that even Lucas a few seats away from them turned his head and stared unbelievably at him. Mark could only plant on a leathery smile and look back to Taeil.

He wasn’t much better than Lucas, if anything, he was more affronted.

The topic of Taeil and Donghyuck’s relationship was never one to ever come up, nor was Taeil’s affair one either. Since it all contributed to his trauma, they kept the topic at arm’s reach, close but never enough for Taeil to see.

So when it was suddenly thrown into conversation, his eyes only widened inexcusably. No noise, no complaints.

No nothing.

 

-

 

The parks in Hell weren’t necessarily ‘parks’. Instead of luscious green grass, there were slick black shards that lit up at the tips with sparks of fire. Flowers were the husks of something beautiful, withered and grey plants that wouldn’t rise to see the sun again. The trees became black things with black branches and black leaves. Lights fluttered around the place like fireflies at night and made the world alight again, a pretty picture of darkness to frame on your wall.

Mark liked to walk around the one closest to his apartment.

During his earlier days when he was first turned into what he was now, he used to think it was unsafe to walk around at night, that souls and demons alike would want to hunt him down. He soon learnt that no one could try and hurt a higher demon.

Even though it was supposedly the date of his transition, Mark couldn’t help but clear his mind in the fields of black. It had always been his point of sanity when he felt like he was losing it the most.

He’d left the alley after the second round had passed and Johnathan had won over Jaehyun surprisingly, when they started to suggest they head back to one of their houses and continue their celebration there. His departure was quiet and easy, slipping past all their watchful eyes to run away. He was sure they knew he just needed some space.

It was glowing lightly when he got to the park, the sparks in the grass flickering as he walked by, igniting around his feet into scratchy orange. The lamps that lined the walk path glowed brighter with his presence and the noise was quiet even so close to the heart of the city.

Mark was never a person to outwardly express his emotions. Through many hard years, he’d learned to rather confine each emotion of the day in a neat folder and put into his compartmentalised drawers in the back of his mind. It was simply as easy as that.

There weren’t many things to make him go messy, lose his pattern, his strength. Only things that mattered only too much became a nuisance. Johnny knew this about him.

Donghyuck had long ago been one of those things. The second he stepped into Minhyung’s life with that wide smile and caramel cardigan around him. Taeil hadn’t been with them that fateful day, nor for their second meeting. Minhyung had fallen in love with Donghyuck all on his own.

Mark would never be able to confess any of that now, not even to Johnathan. If he confessed that the mortal boy had been the Sunshine Killer every demon in Eden had feared, it would be his end. Donghyuck wouldn’t even remember even if he did confess.

He had this dumb idea, a stupid mirage in his mind that turned him crazy. It was satisfying to watch his mind fulfil his fantasy, let it play around in his mind like a projection.

Mark wanted Donghyuck to meet Taeil again. That small sick and twisted part of him _craved_ it. All the nostalgia twirling in his stomach wasn’t going away and he felt it needed to be fed. It was making him _sick._

“Mark.”

It was Renjun, Donghyuck’s friend from the bar. Mark knew him, knew _of_ him. He was much smaller closer in person than he thought he would be.

The freezing soul was wrapped in every thick layer that could possibly go around him, his face dug into the scarf to get away from the cold. He walked over calmly to where Mark was and sat down on the bench next to them. Mark took the hint and sat down beside him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Renjun. The soul turned to his in response and tilted his head. So very humanlike.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” he replied.

“What?”

The air was cold for Renjun, blistering away at the skin the Sins had given him. To Mark, it was like a warm breeze against his skin. Every second spent in Hell was another moment away from the life he used to have. The difference between them was enough to show him that.

“I think you should talk to Donghyuck.”

Mark looked at him confused, trying to keep his heartbeat as even as possible. He was scared even Renjun would be able to hear it.

“What? I don’t even know anything about him, we’ve hardly met,” Mark said as calmly as possible, looking away up to the sky to not be in the direct line of sight for Renjun.

The soul was frustrated but from what he’d quickly observed, was just as calm and collected as he was. There was no moment he could step out of line.

“He’s been different lately, more reserved and calm. He seems happier if you would even believe it, a murderer in Hell being happy? Not something common,” Renjun spoke, “but I think it might be because of you.”

Mark looked to him and properly took in his face. The soul was looking straight ahead, not at him, not at the grass. It was as if he wasn’t even seeing at all.

The wind in the air shifted. “As I said before, why come to me when I hardly know him.”

Renjun finally looked up at him and smiled. It was a very pretty smile, able to melt ice caps. “Because the first time I ever saw you was when I was fourteen,” he said. Mark could feel all the blood run from his face.

“That’s impossible. How could you have seen me when you were alive, I’m a demon, I don’t live in the mortal world.”

“I saw you with your human friends, I remember it,” Renjun responded. He was too calm for this. “I remember it because I was upset that day and I had run away from home. I sat in the park and I saw you, Mark. I saw you and all your friends because you were laughing the way I wasn’t.”

Mark wanted the soul to stop speaking.

“Lucas told me about how your reaping missions work, I know that’s why you were there. I also know how your presence is erased after so no one would remember you, but I guess I was an exception because you didn’t _know_ me.”

“I saw you, Mark. I saw you with your arm around Donghyuck’s waist.”

No.

“I know Taeil was supposed to be your mission. I know he was Donghyuck’s boyfriend.”

Stop.

“I know you were in love with him.”

 

❂

 

_“I made a flower crown for you, it’s made of little daisies,” Donghyuck said, bringing the crown in his hand over Minhyung’s head. The boy allowed him to gently place it on him, holding his breath just as the wafts of Donghyuck’s cologne breezed into his face._

_When Donghyuck pulled back, he admired the pretty picture of Minhyung sitting on the grass in the sunny air. He had his denim overalls that Donghyuck had bought for him the first year they met and no shirt underneath. He looked like every free picture of those boys in America who had grass in their hair and a guitar in their hands. In fact, Minhyung’s guitar was only a few metres away._

_“What’s for lunch again?” Seol asked them when she came to sit next to them, reaching out to fix Donghyuck’s own flower crown to stop it from falling. The boy smiled at her._

_“Soba noodles!”_

_From beside him, Minhyung smiled at the enthusiasm in Donghyuck’s voice, the happiness that lay there. It was rare these days that you’d find the boy smile anymore, whether it’d be at small jokes or bright days. It was making all his friends extremely worried._

_Hyunjin and Jisoo were setting up the picnic blanket with all the food by the big willow tree next to the river. It was the perfect day for Donghyuck. The shade surrounded them like a large blanket, safe._

_“I can’t believe Taeil is trying to fish in the river, he’s supposed be a doctor not stupid,” he laughed. The others joined with him and followed his eyes to the man in loose shorts with his fishing rod. To Donghyuck, he looked stupidly adorable with that bucket hat covering his face._

_“Hyung, come over and have lunch!” he called for his boyfriend, watching as the man turned to his voice. Ever since their friends had learned about their relationship, they’d only gushed about how cute they were together. Usually only Taeil was the one to thank them on their compliments. Donghyuck always changed the topic before it could go any further._

_Taeil walked over to them just as Minhyung managed to detach himself from Donghyuck’s hands and grab his guitar. The sun was right in the sky and burning all their skin with a sweetness only attributed to a summer in Seoul. It was nice, it was simple and it was theirs._

_People all around them wondered through the large park, some coming to sit down on the grass only metres away, some just wondering. A child or two ran on the paths, too fast a speed for Donghyuck to properly see. Many people had picnics one these last few days in the hot heat, savouring every last ray of light and enjoyment coming with the end of summer._

_August was finally coming to a close._

_The group of friends gathered around the blanket and the assortment of food, Jisoo’s cupcakes reserved in the basket for later. When she’d whispered about it to Minhyung, the boy had giggled with excitement and clapped his hands._

_Donghyuck beckoned Taeil to sit beside him and allowed space for the man to sit between him and Minhyung. He didn’t see his face when he moved away and only paid attention to Taeil’s smile instead._

_They all ate together and laughed, talking about how Jisoo’s most recent date with Lisa had ended with cake being splattered all over the latter’s face and down her pretty suit. Apparently, it had been Jisoo who had cried for her, trying to wipe away all the cream off her face._

_“Cupcake time!” she clapped her hands when everyone had finished with their plates. Not wanting to wait anymore, Minhyung launched himself out of his seat on the ground and pulled out the dessert for everyone, eyes so bright like a child._

_The change in seating now that he had stood up had Minhyung sitting with Donghyuck alone next to the food. With the way the boy was smiling at him, he couldn’t help but let his hand snake around Donghyuck’s wait and rest there, watching his lips grow even wider._

_“I hope the cupcakes will be good,” Donghyuck smiled to him, his voice light in Minhyung’s arms._

_“The cupcakes don’t need to be good for me be to be happy,” he responded, turning back to the rest of them before Donghyuck could see the deep redness in his cheeks._

_They may have not talked about it, but there was a mutual understanding about the relationship between them. Even if they hadn’t acted upon it._

_Even if Taeil was still in the picture. Because Donghyuck was loyal, he was good, he was innocent._

_With every mirror reflecting light into him only for him to turn it into black, he was innocent. Even if he was creating himself a void no one would be able to escape._

_-_

_Donghyuck couldn’t breathe. The hands on his shoulders didn’t help him breathe. The pillow between his legs didn’t help breathe. He was suffocating._

_“Don’t leave me,” he cried into the bed covers, the silk scraping his face like sandpaper. All of it hurt. The hand in his grip was deathly cold, grip slowly releasing with every minute._

_His mother went and sat on the other side of the bed, metres apart from his but in no less pain. She was a little more reserved to herself, simply just watching her mother pass in front of her. No matter how many tears she cried would stop the nature of time taking away what they both loved._

_“Grandma, don’t g-go,” Donghyuck whispered again. His words were muffled by the fabric of the bed, the rich colours of the Kang family. Everything about the room they were in was rich and luxurious, but Donghyuck couldn’t care less because the only thing of value was going to die before the night would end._

_He’d always been the closest with his grandmothers the most growing up, spending most days at either of their houses rather than his own as a little excuse not to face his father’s wrath. Donghyuck’s grandmother never knew about his behaviour towards his family, not even after she died. Now the only other one left was leaving and it felt like his safe haven was finally crumbling down right in front of him._

_It pained him to look up and see the pale face of the bright woman that used to be. He couldn’t help but remember all the times she would have taken him to the park for a few minutes just for him to get some fresh air, or the pretty cookies she would make every birthday of his. How she would share secrets with him at family events as if they were teens in their prime time._

_Donghyuck’s grandmother had been his guardian angel and now he would no longer have those wings to shelter him._

_Her eyes were closed, dull and sunken right into the sockets. Every bone was on show, hollow cheeks and a hard jawline. She almost looked like a living skeleton, waiting for days to finally be over. Donghyuck wondered if she was really waiting for it to be all over._

_She was weak, too weak. Donghyuck was even scared of holding her hand too hard. He was scared about everything. That maybe he’d look up a second later and see her gone forever._

_He was so scared._

_Other than his other grandmother, he’d never had somebody else close to him die. He’d never gone through such devastation. Of course he’d wondered what it’d feel like, but wishing is a lot more easier than experiencing the real thing._

_Donghyuck had been very little when his father’s mother had passed away suddenly. It had been a shock to everyone and a sad moment for only some. He didn’t really understand how the woman he’d been playing in the garden with only the day before was suddenly dead. At that age, he didn’t know what the word even meant._

_It had taken him a whole week of confused glances and small pouts to finally figure out what had happened to his beloved grandmother. He remembers crying for days on end, not flinching when his father would hit him to silence him or when his mother would shout at him to shut up. He was in his own head for a whole week._

_Donghyuck wouldn’t be making that same mistake this time, he knew what was happening. No one would stop him this time from grieving. And if they tried, he’d know what to do with them this time._

_All suffering must stop at some point._

_So he raised his head again and smiled down at the woman who had given him so much love and watched her silent tears fall. She looked in so much pain and it hurt to watch. When Donghyuck looked to his mother, he brought his finger up to his lips to silence her. All she did was watch wide eyed._

_Donghyuck reached for the plush pillow beside his grandmother’s head and breathed out. He looked at it then to the dying woman. He looked at his mother one last time and closed his eyes._

_He brought down the pillow and kept it there, ignoring his mother’s cries._

 

-

 

“Did you know my mother my biggest ally? Sad thing she died before the police could get to her.”

Donghyuck was sure both his parents were in Hell right alongside him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget to leave both a kudos and a comment on how you like the fic so far. comments make happy writers and happy writers are productive ones <333


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